Welcome everyone to the DC Beer show. We are at DC
Beer across social media. We'd love to see you DC
Beer on Instagram, Facebook, and
blue sky less so on Twitter because it's getting weird over
there. Mike Stein, what is in your stein? Thanks,
Jake. I'm drinking VAR from Halfway Crooks. It
is VAR, and the packaging is wonderful.
They say on the packaging, beer pivo,
which is check for unfiltered. So I'm keeping it
local. I got VAR, which is a Georgia beer, semi local,
but I got it at the brew shop. Shout out to Beth and Julie who
are Patreon supporters, and they're members of our
Patreon. If you don't know, go to patreon.com
backslash dcbeer. Come see about us. Jordan,
you traveler, you traveling man on on a
jet plane. What's going on in your world? What are you drinking?
Hello. Hello. Yeah. Thank you, Stein. It's been
a it's been a busy, busy summer. I've been traveling all over.
Just the latest was was San Diego. Hopefully, you guys get to hear about that
later. But, because it's been so hot out and because I've missed
home so much, I'm enjoying some Dennis' Brewing Company
Bohemian, excuse me, born Bohemian pills. So it's a Czech style
Pilsner. Shout out to Stein. I know you love all things Czech.
But, yeah, Jake, what you sipping on tonight,
sir? So for our resident beer historian,
Mike Stein, do you know what significance July 23rd
has in the beer calendar? Is
it, international beer guy? On
July 23rd 1635,
sir Nicholas Hulse filed a patent for a
smoke free kiln for the drying of
hops and malt without touching of
smoke. And so on July 23rd, we are recording this on
Tuesday, July 23rd, we celebrate Smoke Beer
Preservation Day. And so in honor of Fox
Farm, having just come into DC, thank you, NRG.
Go check them out at the shelter at Sovereign as well. I have the
cabin, a 5.3%. Smoked Helles Logger, it
is delightful, I would say. Go get
you some, Pillsborough, with barbecue.
You wanna keep it vegetarian or vegan? Grilled halloumi. That's what
I did earlier today. Big fan. Brandy, what are
you drinking? Hi, DC Beer fam audience listening. Before I tell you
what I'm drinking, I wanna say happy early birthday to miss
Julie Virardi. Her birthday's coming up in
August, so shout out to Julia Denizens because you
know I love you guys. I am drinking other
half, Poetry Snaps. So Poetry Snaps is a rice
lager. I'm sure you've had Poetry Snaps. They
really crushed the lagers over there at Other Half.
But this week, I'm looking forward to
tasting some Citra beers because it is Citra Week at other
half, and you can go check out all of those citra
week beers. I think there's, like, 9, 8 or 9 or 10 beers
dropping. I want to know what's going on in the beer
world because next Thursday is National IPA
Day. We got a bunch of beer, celebratory, random
holidays, and I'm loving I'm loving the vibes right
now. So what we got, JB? 1st up,
Aslan set like a land speed record in the DMV.
They dropped an Oktoberfest, their fest beer
on July 6th. Today, 26th.
Friday today, they're dropping their Scotch ale. So
Scotch ale in July. Do you think we should take, like, a
hot poker to it and, extra caramelize those malts
perhaps at an upcoming Metro Bar events?
Okay. The wheels are in motion. Alright.
But in terms of other stuff that's on the radar, the Olympics coming up.
Jordan, what are you watching for? Well, you know, in my younger days I know
that's probably funny to hear me say that. But anyway, in my younger days, I
was a track athlete. So I'm excited for all of the spring
events, specifically the hurdles as I was a hurdler.
So I'm looking forward to see what Team USA does. I
believe, our swim team and our gymnastics team
will make us all proud, and I hope they do so. So, yeah, I'm just
just looking forward to all of it, looking forward to kind of the world coming
together. Hopefully, it's not as crazy as maybe the past 2 weeks
have been, but hopefully it's it's smooth. How about signed,
Brian? Are you guys looking forward to anything Olympic related? Oh, for
sure. Both Bluejacket and Atlas are having
Olympic specials. So if you're in Navy Yard,
Atlas, or on Tinney Street for Bluejacket down
in Southeast, go check out the Olympics there. I had,
Jake, some of that aforementioned Aslan Festbier.
And we also saw Atlas' Festbier at
the drafts and crafts event, and I had a
can or a sixer of Atlas's Festbier snuck to
me. And I have to say that it's really interesting that
with the more Munich, Munich,
Muenchener Pale Festbier, little hoppy, got a nice kick of
the hops, whereas the Atlas to me reminds me more of
Maerten, of that multi special. And
we just had the beer share, Brandy. Wonderful beer share. Thank you for
hosting us so graciously. Thanks to Bright Proper Brooklyn for hosting us.
Brandy, you did a wonderful job there. But I showed some folks the
Festbier, and they're like, oh, Festbier on what was it?
July 21st, whatever the date was, that Sunday. And I was
like, yeah. When was the last time you had an amber lager? And they're like,
oh, yeah. I guess it was July 2023. And I was like,
yeah. Amber Lager all year round. Doesn't matter if it's
now July. Like, I will have it 12 months, 52 weeks out
of the year. Let's go Amber Lager. Shout out to Right
Proper. Love you guys. Speaking of the beer share, I'm
so freaking excited because we had
4 new people come to our our beer share this past
weekend. We had Josh come and Juan and his
wife, and they are now new Patreon members. They had such
a great time. They signed up for Patreon. Shout out to Juan
for bringing those banging ass chicken skewers. Those were great.
We had some good beer as always, and, it was just
so nice to see new faces. And and I want you guys
to know that if you think you want to come
and you might feel nervous, I understand, and I respect that, but
you end up having fun. And I'm really thankful. So shout
out to Josh and Juan, for being our new
Patreon members. And, we look forward to seeing you guys next
month at Denizen's. Speaking of, shout out to
Denizen's for hosting our August beer share, which is going to
be on August 11th, which is gonna be a crazy busy weekend.
That's Saturday in August is our women's brew culture club. We're
back. We took July off, so we're back with Alyssa at Lyon Hall.
So you know what? Even though July is my birthday month, I'm ready for
August, y'all. I'm just ready to move I'm just ready to move on.
Well said. It is Leo Virgo
season that we are getting into. It's barrel and flow. It's
women's brew culture club at Lyon Hall. It's the DC
Beer share at Denizen's. One other event that
may not have been mentioned, and if it was, just to reiterate, international beer
day will be next Friday. So it's a number of events happening in
and around DC. So check out DCBureau dotcom for our
events and all the updates there, as well as some awesome stories coming
out. We also have the Kolschfest at Bluejacket
on July 28th from 12 to 3. Banner. Yeah.
So that's happening the day after tomorrow, July 28th.
There is going to be some action further in the week at
Churchkey on, July 31st, a week
of drinking in 1 night, cycle brewing at Churchkey.
Cycle out of Florida is bringing some of their favorite
stouts, imperial stouts, and barley wines. Not one, but 2 different
barley wines. So, yeah, check out Churchkey on
Wednesday, the last day of July. No. No.
No. No. We wanna skip that and go straight to the 1st day
of August when at Shelter, Bierstadt
Lagerhaus. Oh. Shelter. Every you know, get your
get your slow pour on, a lovely Dunkel, a lovely Helles as
well. They also know everything. Yep. And
see who they are. Ashley Carter. Yeah. Technical
editor of Modern Lager Beer. Yes. Should you enjoy Modern
Lager Beer by Jack and Joe, thank Ashley Carter
of Bierstadt Lagerhaus, and then go try her beers.
Yeah. But I wanna get as far away from lager as possible for a
minute. Jordan, you were just in San Diego
where I guess there's lager, but mostly what I think of is
I think of IPA. What really stood out in your
travels over there? Well, I don't know if you know if I have enough
time. Yeah. It's it's it's really an awesome place. I mean, it was chill. Like,
weather was perfect as as one would expect, but, I'll just list
off the places I was able to hit, and then I'll close out
quickly with the one that really stood out. But I was able to go to
Catch. Catch is a, they brew beer, but they're mostly known for their food
and their fish tacos, which are excellent by the way. But I tried all of
the beers that I could there, and actually their crispy boys came out
really well. Caught Amplified Brewing by the
water. I went to their Pacific Beach location. So just kinda had some beers and,
you know, enjoyed the boardwalk. Of course, I started
with North Park. I mean, no one's got us there.
When I walked in, 2 of the guys in the back had other half shirts.
I was like, I was like, I feel like I'm I feel like I haven't
left, the East Coast yet. But yeah. So North Park was really great. They had
some collabs coming out with a burial down in North
Carolina and had a couple of other collapse that they that they were
dropping. Went to Fall Brewing just briefly, just kinda just poking my head
in there. I was trying to hit as many as possible, but I
finished with Pure, which was my favorite. And
if not just for like the quality of beer, like, specifically the
North Park location, like it was just beautiful. Like
I got there around, like, 3 in the afternoon,
sent around, like, 2 or 3 hours. And it was just it was just chill.
Like, it was just the music was excellent. Like, staff was really nice. Obviously,
the beers are great. So I would say Pure probably they they took the cake.
So it was a great trip. Definitely, folks, if you haven't been out there, I
would recommend it. Not just a great place for beer, but all things
holistic. I think we should have our next DC Beer retreat in San Diego.
But, yeah, up next is, Barrel and Flow. And I hope to bring back some
awesome tales of awesome people and awesome beer with
my lovely co attendee, Amber, because it's
gonna be she and I. You guys right now is Paunchy, but she and I
will be holding her down for the the DC Beer fair. Our
guest is also well traveled. I know him best
from his work at Schlafly, but he's no stranger to DC.
He's at American University. He's been at Heavy Seas before that.
Please welcome the show, Dan Kopman. Stein, take it away. Thanks,
Jake. I'm here with Dan Kopman, who is professional
lecturer at American University's Kogod School of Business and
a senior policy adviser to the Worldwide Brewing Alliance
who specializes in studying global shifts in the alcohol
industry. Dan, welcome to The DC Beer Show. Thank you
for having me. Happy to be here. It's wonderful to have you
here. So I wanna let our
listeners know, Dan, you most recently
before academia worked as CEO at Heavy Seas.
But before that, you worked in Missouri and in England.
Would our listeners, who, of course, are global citizens and have lived and
traveled all over the world, would they have had your beer or beer you brewed
in, say, London from 1983 to 1991 or,
say, Saint Louis from 1991 to 2017?
Yes. That's the short answer. Yes. So if you lived in
London in the 19 eighties, if you lived in London today, you
would find hundreds of Young's Pubs in London, and
you would be familiar with Young's Original,
Young's Special, Young's Winter Warmer, those beers.
Many Young's pubs, the pubs are very popular. And then in Saint
Louis, yes, I was the cofounder of Schlafly Beer. So if
you had found yourself even at the airport just changing planes
in the Southwest terminal or the American Airlines terminal, we
had pubs in those in those terminals. So you would have you would have had
a a pint of Schlafly parallel there even today. Yes. That's
wonderful. So our listeners will now know. But I wanna get a
little more granular. As we mentioned, you're at
American University's Kogod School of Business, and I had heard you
discussing on another podcast about some of
the experiential learning projects for the students at AU.
Can you tell us a little bit about some of those projects and the exciting
work you're doing at Kogod? So the course that
I helped coordinate, I coordinate the capstone,
experiential learning project. The capstone class is a
strategy class in which all of our seniors take that as
one of their last classes. And part of that is a consulting
project. So we work with different companies, big
and small, some in the DC area, some others around the world.
And we identify problems that those
companies are experiencing, and then the students spend
a semester working on those problems
as consultants. So students move from
being students to consultants through the process. So it's a
great learning experience for them, and we hope to, at the end
of the day, provide actionable advice
for the client. So for example, we did do a
a project with Right Proper Brewing Company in DC.
And if there are other breweries in DC that are interested
in the capstone consulting project, then by all means,
send me an email. It's dankopman@american.edu. You
know? And experiential learning is a is a big part
of the business school experience for
both undergraduate and graduates. I would strongly encourage folks to
be in touch. I'm wondering, you talk a good bit about early
mover advantage. When you were in Schlafly in Saint Louis,
there was some early mover advantage, and the same with heavy seas.
In Maryland, they had an IPA early sort of in the IPA wave
that's still cresting. I'm wondering either locally
or even globally, because I know you work a lot in the inter in
international spaces and other countries on other continents, The early
mover advantage I see applied to locally in DC brewers
like DC Brau who put a seltzer, a canned seltzer on the market in
2019. They just put DC's first can
NA beer on the market, which is a big deal as we've seen the
proliferation of NA beer. But can you tell us a little bit about
early mover advantage? And if you can, either look into your
crystal ball and and see what's coming down the pike or or talk a little
bit about some of those early mover advantages you've seen in your experiential
time. So early mover advantage is
intuitively exactly what it is. You're you're one of the you're
fortunate. You're lucky. You're smart. One of those things to be an
entrepreneur in a market where you're
moving into a segment, a category
at a time when others really aren't. And so you have
that 1st mover or early mover advantage.
It doesn't it doesn't guarantee success.
It it provides a temporary, what I call, competitive
advantage for a company that does it well.
The question is then is how do you sustain that competitive
advantage? That's the harder part. That's the much harder
part. And that early mover advantage
can last a very short period of time, or it can last
a long time. So if you think back to the craft
beer business before the term craft beer existed,
there were brewers like ourselves, Schlafly in Saint Louis, one of the
first couple 100 craft breweries in the United States. We had an
early mover advantage, especially in our local market. Now our
local market was unique because it was the home of Anheuser Busch.
So we had that early mover advantage for a
very long time, say, 1991 all the
way until 2008. We were pretty much on our
own, and so that gave us a really
significant competitive advantage in the craft
market for quite a long period of time. But
I would say that once the competitors appeared, it got
hard fast. Right? And I remember back
to it was, I think, a beer institute meeting in Saint Louis, and
Gary Fish, the founder of Deschutes, one of the founders of Deschutes,
was in Saint Louis. And we were talking about this issue, and
he he was saying, so what do you do what are you gonna do when
there's others? And I said, well, there aren't others at the moment. This was
well before 2008. And so it's really a David and Goliath
type approach that we took to having that advantage.
And then with the sale of Anheuser Busch to INBEV,
things changed where there were now other breweries in Saint Louis. But Gary
got a real taste of this early on because in Oregon, there were so many
more brewers in addition to Deschutes that started
throughout the 19 nineties. There was a bit of a shakeout, if you remember.
So that's early mover advantage. Early mover advantage is often
often coincides with early adopters.
So when I talk about early adopters, those are the consumers
within an innovation cycle that are your
first consumers. Right? I used to describe it
as I know every drinker because they all came into our pub because,
honestly, we only sold beer over our own bar for the 1st 2 years
in Saint Louis, 91 to roughly 93.
Because, rightly, for for all the very good reasons, most bars in
Saint Louis didn't wanna sell a non Anise Busch beer. The brewery was
too good to most bars in Saint Louis to to sort
of, you know, rock that boat. So it often
is associated with that, but, again, the the easy
part is getting a competitive advantage by having early mover
advantages. The hard part is keeping it. That's very well said. Easy
to get, but it can be lonely at the innovation or
progressing forward top of the mountain, and then there's no guarantee.
So, yeah, I'm wondering about that in terms of,
THC or cannabis based beverages because I've
talked to some brewers. You know, they feel like, okay. They've done well with
hard seltzer or making a product, but, of course, they don't
wanna break the law. They're, judicious brewers,
so they're waiting on legislature effectively. Legislator.
Yeah. And this is a big what if question, so Yeah. Pre
preemptive apology. But the question you know, we've seen Athletic Brewing
Company in the NA space, and I'm kind of drawing a parallel between NA
and potentially THC bev. We've seen athletic go from a
few 1000 barrels to, I don't know, maybe 200,000. They were at a
170,000 barrels year before last. Could we
see 200,000 barrels of THC seltzer,
Beyond beer, bev, whatever, if if the legislative
landscape goes the way some people think it will? To
step back a second, with Beyond beer, you have to separate
different products into different segments because they're not
all the same. So think about it from a consumer
standpoint and think about the concept of something
that we teach students about of cognitive dissonance.
What I mean by that is in layman's
terms where your brain gets twisted. Right?
So if you're talking about an innovation such as seltzer
or RTD spirits, these are 4 to 5%
alcohol beverage 4 to 4 to 5% ABV
beverage alcohol products. So from an ethanol
standpoint, there's no dissonance for the consumer. There's just a
slightly different flavor. So I think you can group all of those
RTDs, whether you call it seltzer or
spear based RTDs, you can be somewhat agnostic as to where the
ethanol comes from. Not entirely because it does
matter, And there is there are elements of, you
know, you know, how are companies marketing these
RTDs? Are they marketing them to try and get them
with spirits to to to buy the full strength
bottles, or are they marketing them as completely separate brands,
like Truly or brands like that? So there's not a lot of
dissonance there. It's a different flavor. It doesn't taste like beer necessarily,
but it's 4 to 5% ABB.
THC beverages, that's gonna be a segment of the THC market.
So you would need to think about it in that in that context. Now
will it it expand the market? Will a beverage
version of 5 milligrams of THC
expand the market of THC consumers?
I don't know. So think I would think about that differently.
Nonalcoholic beer presents a completely different
challenge for consumers because there's a lot of cognitive dissonance.
Right? So you walk into a bar, and
you may not want to drink ethanol that night for whatever
reason. Or you've had a beer, and you don't necessarily want another one.
Right? And you see nonalcoholic beer now on the
menu, and it's the same price, or it's more, or it's a
little bit less. And there's a dissonance there. There's a
sort of, oh, hold on. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? I
need to get my head around. So the number of consumers that
actually are consuming nonalcoholic beer, the number of early adopters
is pretty small. So it's a completely different type of
innovation, and it's gonna have a completely different
growth trajectory as a result. Meaning, like,
craft beer back in the nineties where we knew every drinker.
Athletic, I'm not saying they know every consumer of their product
or Heineken 0 0, but it's different.
And the number of consumers is different.
And so while athletic has that early mover advantage in the United
States, they definitely would not have that in Europe.
So the the most important thing for your audience to
know about nonalcoholic beer in the US
is that the number of adopters in the US is the
lowest in any region of the world. So the
penetration of nonalcoholic beer into the US
is quite low. It has started to
grow pretty dramatically, but it's well
behind. So, for example, there's 50 +1000000
barrels in US terms of nonalcoholic
beers sold globally. 25,000,000 of that half of that is
Europe. The next largest market is the Middle East and
and Africa. After that is Latin
America and then Asia Pacific, and then finally you get
to North America. So the global
rate of growth for nonalcoholic beer is in the high single digits.
I'd expect that to continue. We're at about 2 a
half percent of global beer production, but the, you know, the US is gonna
be, I think, a big market, but we need to go from
early adopters to the early majority. When we go to the
early majority of consumers, then we're gonna see even
higher rates of growth. So the to your
original question about early mover advantage, we're still there. The
companies that are investing now in
creating the market are going to have that
early mover advantage. The question is, will they be able
to sustain that competitive advantage? It doesn't always work that
way. If you think about smartphones, the iPhone was not the
1st smartphone. Right? The iPhone was launched
into a late early majority or almost,
you know, a late majority of consumers. And that's
why the volume was so big for the iPhone. So, you know, the
global brewers are all committed to the market. And when I say global, it's the
ones we're familiar with, including the Japanese brewers. They're really
committed to the market. So I think it's
important if it's something that a DC
brewer feels they it it can they
they can be effective, in building a market
long term, then go for it. But it's gonna be
pretty the volumes are gonna be small right now, especially if
you're only in one market. That's gonna be the big challenge
for local brewers getting into NA beer. The volumes
will be small because the number of consumers is small right now. I really
appreciate you putting the US into the global context
for how many NA beer drinkers we have
from from a global market perspective, but then also the idea
that there could be great growth, but it will take
time and it will not be, oh, let's say, it won't be easy
as as all good things worth pursuing are not easy. But it's
interesting because I think, you know, I
aside from asking you to look into your crystal ball, I I now wanna look
back on the past because in DC, we have an interesting
story with the barrels sold,
specifically, how much beer was sold in
2018 2019. We're talking about over
400,000 barrels. These are this is from the mayor's office. I have a
distributor friend who got a report from Bowser's office, and he was
letting me know there's about 420,000 barrels in both 2018
and 2019. Obviously, 2020 with the COVID
19 global pandemic, we're down to 303,000 barrels.
And in 21, a slight increase, 324,000 barrels.
But at the same time, out of those 300,000 plus barrels,
DC only brews about, you know, between 3,040,000 barrels
annually. So how would you recommend DC
Brewers grow their market, and and what
do you see what do you see in in the way of trends and where
that might go? I think this is really I'm sorry. I was looking at interesting.
I was looking at some data this morning on small brewers. The World
Brewing Alliance, we have a a UN beer club in the same way that, say,
the Brewers Association has a small brewers caucus in
DC. We have a a beer club up in New
York, made up of the missions, you know, the the missions to the
UN. So it it was interesting. If I
look at global and I'll come back to DC. I'll I'll bring this
back. If I look at global data on
small brewers versus the large brewers, 15 there's
15 brewers in the world that individually have 1
more than 1% of the global beer
volume. Right? And and they make up
about, call it, 70, 75 percent of global beer
volume. So there's still almost 30% of global
beer volume is made up by smaller brewers. If
I look at the US data, I think it's 13%
of US volume is craft. Right? So if we think of
them in there roughly, that's roughly the same number. So you
cited, I think, about 10% of DC volume is made up by
smaller brewers. So that's that's consistent with
the national average of, say, 13%. So the you know, that
so so if the global data and the country
data and the local data are all
roughly aligned, then that's that's interesting.
And then that that numb those those global numbers haven't moved a lot
in the past 4 or 5 years. Right? It's been been in that,
you know, 10 to 15% of beer volume is
smaller brewers. You know, one of the things that I look at really
carefully these days is demographic data. So I look at
this, especially for a course I teach
at at AU on global entrepreneurship. And what I
find is what I find interesting is the demographic data
on the US versus, say, Europe. The US
population right now has the largest
number of legal foreign born nationals
since the late 1800. 24% of the US
population legal was not born in the
US. The last time the number was that high was the late 1800,
and we can and many people can trace their American
heritage back to that that time. Right? So that's quite
interesting. So then you you sort of say, okay. Where are they coming from? Right?
Well, yes. A lot have been coming from Mexico and Latin America
over the past 20 years. And is there a
correlation between that and the growth of Mexican imports?
Probably. I haven't run the regression, but my guess is there's a
correlation there. But if you look at where they're coming from now,
the in equal numbers, they're coming from China, Mexico, and
India. And so I think that is really interesting.
The US the average age in the US is 36,
37. Average age in Europe is 47. Immigration
is is holding that average age down in the US.
That's good for brewers. Right? Younger drinkers,
more consumption. We've seen a lot of lost
volume of ethanol consumption, beer, wine, and spirits in
Europe. I have to think that a lot of that is related to
the to the increasing average age.
So if I'm a local brewer, if you think
back, you know, 20 years, things have really
changed in terms of the consumer base, you know, the total
consumer base. You know, what's my potential market? And I
think brewers need to take a step back. Even local brewers need to take a
step back and say, what's my market, and who am I
selling to? Because when you think about
the total population of DC and you think about
you know, look at the demographics of DC and compare
it back to 20 years ago or 10 years ago even. So when
a brewer like DC Brauer or Wright Proper or others started,
I have a sneaking suspicion sneaky suspicion that the
demographic picture looked very different. And
so maybe the volumes haven't changed in terms of the amount of beer
being sold total, but who's buying it is different.
And certain things are growing and certain things aren't. And I
think that speaks to maybe what Bart Watson
or Bob Pease and others at the Brewers Association, people locally have been
saying, that, you know, we need to broaden
the appeal of beer from small
brewers, beverages from small brewers, and we need to
consider who our consumers are. So I think I would start
there. Very well said, Dan. Dan, thank you so much for joining us
on the DC Beer Show, and we look forward to seeing you around Friendship
Heights. Yes. You know, if anyone has questions again about the
programs at American University, especially our you know, not
just our the academic programs, but the consulting projects and
our center for entrepreneurship, the Velourich Center For Entrepreneurship,
please do not hesitate to email me. Again, it's dankopman@american.edu.
Wonderful. Thanks so much, Dan. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Dan.
American University, everyone. Go Eagles. Alright, everybody.
Be well. You're watching the Olympics. Again, I think Bluejacket and
Atlas, probably the 2 best places to be in terms of beer
centric spots. We are at DCB across social media.
Brandy, take us out. Cheers, everybody. Come to the next beer
share.