Transcript
00:00:00 Ken
Alex Putner joins us on this episode to help us understand more.
00:00:03 Ken
The world of corporate.
00:00:04 Ken
Brewing he explains his beginnings of home brewing in the 80s in California to his ties to our state. BJ's Brewhouse have many locations, but Alex helps us talk about how he manages the multiple brew houses, the contract brewing, the use of reverse osmosis to help with the water.
00:00:22 Ken
Chemistry and we get a sneak peek into the details of the new location going up in Grand Rapids this.
00:00:28 Ken
Call join us Live Friday, 7:15 PM Eastern on Facebook, Twitch and kick all at better on draft.
00:00:37 INTRODUCTION
Whether your beer is in a bottle can or glass kick back and relax, it's better on draft.
00:00:54 Ken
Welcome, everybody. Episode 325 of the Better on Draft podcast. My name is Ken. Thank you so much for.
00:01:00 Ken
Joining us I.
00:01:00 Ken
Truly appreciate it. It is a stormy few days we've been having here at Michigan with those flash floods, so hopefully everybody is getting their power back. They didn't lose too much in their refrigerators.
00:01:11 Ken
But with that in mind, let's go around and see what everybody is drinking, starting with Dan. Dan, what do you got over there?
00:01:18 Rob
So I've got my go to Speedway stout as always drink four or five of those.
00:01:23 Rob
Today I've got a.
00:01:25 Rob
Jeremiah read from.
00:01:27 Rob
BJ's.
00:01:29 Ken
Awesome. And, Wendy, Wendy, what do you got?
00:01:31 Wendy
Over there I have a tropical hop storm from BJ's and a Rochester Mills Milkshake Stout.
00:01:42 Ken
I feel like we're going to be drinking an infinite amount of Rochester mills for the next year, year and a half.
00:01:48 Wendy
Just a little bit.
00:01:48 Ken
As just a little bit, that's for sure. We do have a special guest host with us today. Why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us where you're from and what you're drinking.
00:01:59 Rob
My name is Rob. I'm from Canton, MI and today I'm drinking a euphoric from a pure project, California.
00:02:07 Ken
And for myself, I've got. That's all right. Sorry, I I kind of like bull rush right over. Yeah. Don't worry. We'll talk to you later. I got a Jeremiah read from BJ's Brewhouse as well as in October Fest from BJ's Brewhouse. And I'd like to introduce our guest who's going to help talk to us about some of these beers, including those BJ's beers.
00:02:09 Alex Puchner
So sorry.
00:02:27 Ken
Why don't you, our guest, introduce yourself? Tell us.
00:02:30 Ken
Who you are, what you work, who you work for.
00:02:32 Ken
A little bit about yourself, the whole shebang.
00:02:35 Alex Puchner
All right. Thanks for having me. I'm Alex Kutner. I am the corporate brewmaster for the BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse Chain of of restaurants and breweries. I have been brewing with BJ's for.
00:02:51 Alex Puchner
27 years now. I'm responsible for getting them into the beer business. They existed as a small feature chain before hiring me.
00:03:00 Alex Puchner
And prior to that, I was involved with some of the first brew pubs in Southern California where I'm based.
00:03:10 Alex Puchner
So see, I've been in there early 90s, so I've been very professionally for 30 years.
00:03:17 Alex Puchner
And was a.
00:03:19 Alex Puchner
A pretty crazy home Brewer prior to that so many years.
00:03:23 Alex Puchner
Right.
00:03:24
Well, let's.
00:03:25 Ken
Let's hit on that before we get into the world of BJ's. As a home Brewer in the late 80s, early 90s.
00:03:31 Ken
How did you go about?
00:03:35 Ken
Finding recipes, finding equipment, gathering all this information when one craft beer wasn't really necessarily that big and two, obviously there's no.
00:03:45 Ken
Internet or anything like that.
00:03:46 Ken
Like, how did you go about?
00:03:48 Ken
Becoming a crazy homebrewer.
00:03:51 Alex Puchner
That was a very different time, very different time. You know, we really didn't have much in the way of craft beer here. Nevada pale ale. There weren't IPA's per say. There were hoppy pale ales, but, you know, IPA's hadn't hit the scene yet. You know, you really couldn't find traditional European styles.
00:04:13 Alex Puchner
You know, with much flavor other than Pilsner, unless you brew them yourself. So that was the motivation, you know, and and homebrewing was immensely popular back then.
00:04:21 Alex Puchner
I I joined the maltose Falcons who were very active back then. They still are. But you know, they they were a homebrewing club in California before homebrewing was illegal in California. They've been around that long and yeah, they they taught me.
00:04:41 Alex Puchner
Just an immense amount about brewing beer just going to their monthly meetings.
00:04:47 Alex Puchner
But I do have to credit Charlie.
00:04:49 Alex Puchner
Papazian and his complete joy of home brewing with.
00:04:53 Alex Puchner
You know, really inspiring me to to stick with it. I think I've probably brewed every recipe in that book from cover to cover.
00:05:03 Alex Puchner
So that's that's how I got my start and I had homework for about 5 years before going professional. I had friends who.
00:05:13 Alex Puchner
We're big fans of my beer.
00:05:14 Alex Puchner
You know my first few batches were.
00:05:17 Alex Puchner
Not good. And I made many mistakes. I do remember that my first batch and I I I brought a sample and a good friend of mine.
00:05:27 Alex Puchner
We worked together. I brought it into his office and we opened it. And you know we.
00:05:34 Alex Puchner
Give it a.
00:05:34 Alex Puchner
Good sip and his response was well.
00:05:38 Alex Puchner
It's drinkable, so you know we're all going to start somewhere. And you know, I was self-taught back in those days, they're really, you know, there weren't most of the craft Brewers back then were self-taught, very few of them have gone to, you know, burning school at UC Davis or or Seibel in Chicago. And it was. It was a great time.
00:05:59 Alex Puchner
You know, I, my friends, encouraged me to start brewing professionally.
00:06:03 Alex Puchner
As Brew Pub started to to pop up.
00:06:06 Alex Puchner
In California and I made that plunge down in the early 90s and never looked back. The smartest thing I ever did.
00:06:15 Ken
Well before I get into talking about the the Jeremiah red on our Facebook page, the gentleman by the name of Todd Parker wants to say hi. Apparently he's known as caustic Todd to you, so you may know him, but he wanted to say hi. We know Todd very well brewing over at the Rochester Mills Brew pub over in Rochester Hills, MI.
00:06:37 Ken
Todd has been a fan, has been on our show before, so he wanted to say hi.
00:06:42 Alex Puchner
Hi, Todd. Yeah, Todd and I.
00:06:43 Alex Puchner
Go way, way back, yeah.
00:06:46 Alex Puchner
Yeah, Chris Brewery was in Brea.
00:06:49 Alex Puchner
In Orange County, and Todd was a regular there.
00:06:54 Alex Puchner
And yeah, worked with us for a brief time. I think it was his first brewery job.
00:07:00 Alex Puchner
Do you like that? Jeremiah read. It's it's not your average, you know. Red ale. It's so it's very different.
00:07:06 Ken
I love the I guess. I guess you could say I'm getting a little bit more like bread and biscuit in the front, which I kind of love that flavor when I'm not getting any type of citrus or pine or anything like that. I'm getting just pure malt.
00:07:21 Ken
But the Jeremiah read you were mentioning before we went live that this was probably your number one selling beer, is that correct or?
00:07:30 Alex Puchner
It is depending on the market, but yeah, in in some markets, warmer climates.
00:07:38 Alex Puchner
Brewhouse blonde or cold style beers? There's the top seller, but I can assure you that in Michigan, Jeremiah Red is is the number one seller.
00:07:47 Ken
Why do you think that?
00:07:49 Ken
A kolsh or red is your #1 seller. When we kind of.
00:07:52 Ken
Live in a world.
00:07:53 Ken
Where those styles aren't necessarily the sexiest, they're not the IPA's. They're not pales. They're not even like dark beers like a stout like.
00:08:02 Ken
Why do you think?
00:08:03 Ken
A coal or a red really outshine and sales the rest.
00:08:09 Ken
Of your beer.
00:08:11 Alex Puchner
You know that Jeremiah Read has always surprised me, and it was really a hit from.
00:08:16 Alex Puchner
From day one.
00:08:18 Alex Puchner
It it is the beer that really differentiates us, it's it's, it's unique, it's not an American style red because it's not balanced it you're right. It's not a not a hoppy beer. It's all about the malt.
00:08:30 Alex Puchner
It's got, you know, a dark fruit, you know, raisins any.
00:08:35 Alex Puchner
Black Cherry kind of maltiness to it. It is high alcohol 7.3% and you know, not balanced. You know, if if if you're not a a hoppy beer drinker, you know Jeremiah read this for you and you know it's always stood out. That's one beer where we haven't touched that recipe.
00:08:56 Alex Puchner
Over the years, you know, 27 years now was one of our original five years almost immediately won a a medal at the Great American Beer Festival. You know, our guest went crazy over it. I was just trying to brew something different from the Red Ales I'd been brewing at brew pubs before BJ's. And I wasn't happy with them.
00:09:18 Alex Puchner
So I thought, yeah, when I just tried.
00:09:21 Alex Puchner
Something of an Irish style red, but on steroids. You know, much bigger, higher gravity, more alcoholic and.
00:09:28 Ken
Yeah, that's the thing that shocked me.
00:09:29 Ken
When I was.
00:09:30 Ken
Reading the the label that it was over 7% because that's that's something that I could easily slam a a growler of and not even bat an eye. I I can't wait for Dan and Wendy for you guys to try that that red ale when you you get the opportunity to.
00:09:47 Ken
But I am gonna pass it off to Wendy though, cause I think Wendy's got a few questions.
00:09:51 Ken
For you that she wants to ask.
00:09:53 Wendy
So umm, I actually have tried it and it's one of my favorites. I'm also a big fan of the quad.
00:10:01 Alex Puchner
Ah, the quad. Yeah, that was a seasonal beer. You.
00:10:04 Alex Puchner
Know I I it's.
00:10:05 Alex Puchner
Hasn't been in our lineup for.
00:10:08 Alex Puchner
Couple of years abnormal cloud we call it and.
00:10:14 Alex Puchner
Yeah, that that beer was formulated by our our R&D director, Aaron Stack. He's based in Boulder where we have our R&D brewery and.
00:10:23 Alex Puchner
Yeah, he does an incredible quad. I I I love that there myself. Absolutely fantastic.
00:10:30 Wendy
So before I get too far into the questions, I do have to say that I read on Wikipedia that the brewery started out as a Chicago style pizza place. You did mention pizza place earlier. Is there a big market for Chicago style pizza in California?
00:10:49 Alex Puchner
You know it. It's it's more deep dish style. It's not true, Chicago style. I I lived in Chicago for a few years and.
00:10:58 Alex Puchner
Originally it was marketed as Chicago style. We recognize that it's, you know, it's.
00:11:04 Alex Puchner
Got a lot.
00:11:04 Alex Puchner
In common with Chicago style pizza.
00:11:06 Alex Puchner
But it's actually a more more unique pizza in it and it's on, right, it's it's it's deep dish. It's we're we're famous for it. Obviously along with our beer.
00:11:18 Alex Puchner
And our dessert, our our Pizzuti definitely definitely signature menu items along with our our beer.
00:11:20 Wendy
Uh, yes.
00:11:26 Wendy
I have had the opportunity to visit BJ's in multiple states at this point, sometimes just by because of location where I'm at, but I'm curious.
00:11:39 Wendy
When you are, I'm sorry.
00:11:44 Wendy
What do you say to people who think because it's a corporate store, that it's not really craft beer?
00:11:55 Rob
We we do get.
00:11:56 Alex Puchner
That you know and yeah, it it bothers me.
00:12:03 Alex Puchner
You know I.
00:12:05 Alex Puchner
I guess what I say is, you know, have you been to beaches? You know, do you do you realize the variety of beer we have? You know, we, you know, we got 12 signature beers and a couple signature. I've seen little beers on it and any at any one time, you know, we we introduce new beers, we design new beers, you know.
00:12:25 Alex Puchner
Every, every few months, there's a new seasonal beer.
00:12:29 Alex Puchner
And this is craft beer at, you know, at at at its. Yeah, at at its core. And you know, that's what BJ's is all about and we've we've been at it now for 27 years.
00:12:41 Alex Puchner
You know, we were.
00:12:42 Alex Puchner
We were pioneers back in the early days, so we're survivors now and, you know, still innovating. And and we'd like to think that we're we're still pioneers today.
00:12:53 Wendy
So one thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that you've also won quite a few awards for your beer at different festivals, but most importantly at JBF. Can you talk about?
00:13:05 Wendy
That a little bit.
00:13:07 Alex Puchner
Yeah, we take Great American beer festival very seriously.
00:13:11 Alex Puchner
Along with the world.
00:13:12 Alex Puchner
Beer cup. You know, those are the.
00:13:14 Alex Puchner
The two big ones.
00:13:16 Alex Puchner
And we do pride ourselves in the number of gold medals we've we've accumulated over the years and some in in recent years. It's particularly ones in recent years that we're most proud of because it is not easy to get, get an award at.
00:13:36 Alex Puchner
At GBF these days, it's it's a tough competition. Not just because there's so many entries.
00:13:42 Alex Puchner
Compared to, you know, 1020 years ago certainly. But American craft beer quality you know is is absolutely world class these days. So you know to stand out amongst so many world class peers is is extremely.
00:13:59 Alex Puchner
Difficult these days.
00:14:03 Wendy
I agree. So I before I pass it over to rob, I will say that like I said, I've been to many of the different locations and I've always really.
00:14:11 Wendy
Enjoyed the food?
00:14:12 Wendy
And I was looking at the website and saw that there was a beer dinner back in July, and I wondered, like, was that the first time you've done that or is it something that you guys are planning to do regularly?
00:14:23 Alex Puchner
We we do them regularly. Thanks for asking. You know it's that's that's something unique the way we do them on a very large scale.
00:14:32 Alex Puchner
We do them 5 * A.
00:14:33 Alex Puchner
Year. The next one is a a spooky Halloween themed beer dinner in mid-october.
00:14:42 Alex Puchner
And it's a different theme for every dinner. This one features stone brewing, so it's a number of their beers, along with our our seasonal pumpkin ale paired with BJ's menu items. And we're very, you know, particular with with the pairings, a lot of it you know.
00:15:01 Alex Puchner
Is educational, you know, not just about the theorists, but, you know, pairing.
00:15:06 Alex Puchner
Beer and food.
00:15:08 Alex Puchner
History of the brewery, whoever's featured, and it could be multiple breweries. We do a holiday themed.
00:15:14 Alex Puchner
Dinner every December with our prime rib and a number of, you know, holiday seasonal beers, winter warmers, that kind of thing. That's one of my favorites. So look for that one too.
00:15:28 Alex Puchner
We do them.
00:15:29 Alex Puchner
In almost all of our restaurants, so about 200 restaurants.
00:15:34 Alex Puchner
Average attendance is 50 depending on the capacity of the restaurants, some might be smaller, some might be, you know, 100 or so you know. So across 200 restaurants, we're basically doing this beer dinner for for 10,000 craft beer lovers every time we.
00:15:52 Alex Puchner
Do it, which is pretty cool when you think about.
00:15:55 Alex Puchner
So yeah, another thing is unique to BJ's, I think.
00:15:59 Wendy
Will you ask me at pumpkin beers for the spooky one? But I'm definitely going to look into the holiday.
00:16:06 Rob
Oh, you got to have our you got to.
00:16:07 Alex Puchner
Have our pumpkin.
00:16:08 Alex Puchner
Ale. That's. That was one of our original seasonal beers along with our October Fest. So at least 25 years old. And yeah, we were one of the original. We weren't the original, but one of the original Brewers of of Pumpkin ale, we have changed the recipe a little bit over the years. We didn't originally use real pumpkin in it.
00:16:26 Alex Puchner
It was just all pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and some caramel malt.
00:16:31 Alex Puchner
But yeah, now we actually use pumpkin puree, which adds some body and flavor to it on top of the pumpkin pie spice.
00:16:37 Alex Puchner
I think you'll like it.
00:16:40 Wendy
I'll give it a try, Rob. I know you have some questions.
00:16:44 Rob
Sure. I was just curious, do you find it difficult to have your own beers competing with your guests, guest taplist or just because?
00:16:52 Rob
They're they may have a wider.
00:16:54 Rob
Audience that would be looking for them.
00:16:56 Rob
Or anything like that.
00:16:58
Yeah, you know, I.
00:16:59 Alex Puchner
Guess beer selection is it's a number of, you know, national craft brands, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium.
00:17:08 Alex Puchner
Stone etc. But usually 6 to 8.
00:17:13
Of the guest beers on.
00:17:14 Alex Puchner
Tap our our local.
00:17:17 Alex Puchner
Local offerings and we sell of our guest beers, that's what we sell the most of now that's. You know, that's what, you know, our beer drinking. Yes, many of them are looking for is something local.
00:17:29 Alex Puchner
So you know, we're happy to offer, you know, selection of local beers on on top of our own and we we end up just selling, selling more beer.
00:17:39 Rob
And I was curious, I'm not super familiar.
00:17:44 Rob
How many different places do you guys brew the beers? Or is it like each location or?
00:17:49 Alex Puchner
Yeah, our model is, is, is unique and it's something we.
00:17:54 Alex Puchner
Fell into.
00:17:57 Alex Puchner
So we are not a brew pub chain really. Never have been. We centralized our brewing operations. When I was hired.
00:18:05 Alex Puchner
Versus a consultant in 1995.
00:18:09 Alex Puchner
DJ's had eight little pizza joints.
00:18:14 Alex Puchner
And a terrible beer list. But you know, the two guys were running the company at the time. They they hired me to get them into the craft beer business. And you know, they're.
00:18:24 Alex Puchner
Handcrafted beer with with deep dish pizza.
00:18:27 Alex Puchner
Great idea.
00:18:29 Alex Puchner
UM.
00:18:31 Alex Puchner
And because we had these existing restaurants, our first brewery was oversized, you know, to supply those other restaurants. And then we had some growth plans. So it was a pretty large, you know, brewing system capacity of 5000 barrels, you know for a brew pub. But we were shipping there to the other restaurants and we we fell into this hub and spoke model.
00:18:51 Alex Puchner
Which really made sense. So for the next 10 years, we opened the brewery for every 10 or 12 or so restaurants and operated that way, you know.
00:19:02 Alex Puchner
A group of chain is that model is flawed once you get.
00:19:06 Alex Puchner
You know beyond 20 or so brew pubs, it really isn't sustainable from a, you know, a quality.
00:19:12 Rob
OK.
00:19:13 Alex Puchner
Control perspective it it's an absolute nightmare, right? Your beer is only as good as your your Brewer and also it doesn't make sense to take a valuable dining space, you know, with, with a brewery in every restaurant you know and and bring equipment. It's it's expensive. So our model really makes sense and we've that's.
00:19:32 Alex Puchner
That's how we've done things, you know, ever since. But now we've outgrown a lot of those older breweries. At one point, we were operating 11 breweries at one time, and we decommissioned a number of the smaller breweries. We still have several of them that we use for R&D purposes.
00:19:49 Alex Puchner
And we have two large production breweries, one as a standalone brewery in in Central Texas and Temple. And because of, you know, our shipping beer both East and West.
00:20:01 Alex Puchner
It's very central. Makes sense.
00:20:05 Alex Puchner
And then we also have a brewery. Our first, larger brewery is in in Reno.
00:20:10 Alex Puchner
So that's where you know the beer you're enjoying there in Michigan is coming from for the most part, temple and to some extent, Reno supplements.
00:20:20 Alex Puchner
The supply there.
00:20:23 Alex Puchner
I should also add that.
00:20:26 Alex Puchner
Another thing that.
00:20:26 Alex Puchner
Complicates our model is because we have liquor licenses, retail licenses there are. There are states that have tied US laws prohibiting us from shipping beer that we brew in our breweries into that state. So about a third of our production is is brewed by two.
00:20:47 Alex Puchner
Partners of ours, you know, contract Brewers that are brewing our brands for us, for for legal reasons.
00:20:55 Rob
Nice. Yeah. I was curious about that because if you've proven several places, quality definitely becomes an issue that, yeah, it's hard to.
00:21:05 Rob
Keep control of.
00:21:08 Rob
Also, if you're you've said you've been there for 27 years, many years, you've definitely very few batches of beer. Do you have any particular favorites that were maybe 1 offs or?
00:21:19 Rob
Something that doesn't improve anymore that.
00:21:21 Rob
You bring back.
00:21:25 Rob
Well, you know, I.
00:21:25 Alex Puchner
Wish I I'm a huge Belgian Ale fan and you know one another thing that differentiated differentiated BJ's more so in the early days was we had a Belgian ale list. You know a list of.
00:21:38 Alex Puchner
My favorite, basically my favorite Belgian hills.
00:21:43 Alex Puchner
Yeah. And of course we we've started brewing our own Belgian ales over the years and.
00:21:48 Alex Puchner
One of my all time favorites of our beers is our grand crew, which is our holiday seasonal. It's a it's a strong golden Belgian spiced with a little orange peel and and and coriander and.
00:22:03 Alex Puchner
You may have had it. It's it's we released it in early November. It's available through through the holiday season and that's one we've been. We first printed for the to celebrate the new Millennium. So this will be the 24th year we've provided.
00:22:18 Alex Puchner
We thought it was just going to be a one off and you know, it was such a huge hit we we brought it back every year. First is kind of to celebrate the New Year and we we tape it New Year's Eve and.
00:22:28 Alex Puchner
Then we realized.
00:22:29 Alex Puchner
Well, you know it's.
00:22:29 Alex Puchner
It's a celebratory beer we're missing out on. Sales was tap it earlier. So now now we tap it in November to enjoy.
00:22:38 Alex Puchner
You know for Thanksgiving and and and through.
00:22:41 Alex Puchner
Through the December holidays and into the New Year, I love this stuff so I can't wait to we've just been brewing the production batches for this year and just bottled we we bottled.
00:22:55 Alex Puchner
Bottle it in a corking cage, 7:50 to sell out of our restaurants where we can sell a beer to go. And that's also a big hit too. So we actually just bottled it because of bottle conditions. We have to get way ahead of it. Just bottled it two days ago. So I'm excited to start sampling the bottles in a few weeks.
00:23:15 Rob
Very nice. Look forward to that. I'll pass it back to Wendy while we're waiting for Dan.
00:23:22 Wendy
I actually have had that.
00:23:23 Wendy
One and I. Yeah, I brought her home with me.
00:23:26 Wendy
Last year I want like.
00:23:29 Wendy
Let's see your California berries currently have a brewhouse beer club for only $30 by monthly with the 5th BJ's in our state. Is there any possibility we'll come to to Michigan?
00:23:44 Alex Puchner
There is a there is a good possibility. Yeah, we.
00:23:49 Alex Puchner
We've stuck to California for the first two years. Big state for us. We have many restaurants there, but you know, Michigan is definitely a state we have and we do expand the club, the state that you know we're we're planning on.
00:24:04 Alex Puchner
It's it's kept our Brewers very busy and and it very motivated to, you know, create new beers because every every two months there are two releases.
00:24:17 Alex Puchner
And one is a more sessionable style of beer in cans and then the other is a bottle condition 750 that you know is typically you know, something strong, maybe something a little crazy something. Yeah. Yeah. More like a new beer experience.
00:24:37 Alex Puchner
And you might want to sell her.
00:24:39 Alex Puchner
But definitely something you want to sip and savor. So we've had a lot of fun with that. And you know, we have a lot of beers that we've brewed over the years that just, you know, we knew wouldn't sell well enough to put.
00:24:51 Alex Puchner
On tap at.
00:24:52 Alex Puchner
BJ's so we had all these, yeah, these recipes and they, they've been perfect for the beer club. And of course, we're creating new recipes.
00:25:01 Alex Puchner
All the time. So.
00:25:02 Alex Puchner
That's been a lot of fun.
00:25:04 Wendy
I'm a huge fan of stuff like that. I have more memberships than I care to admit. Speaking of berries in Michigan, I hear that our Grand Rapids is going to open in October.
00:25:16 Alex Puchner
Yes. So we have 4 BJ's in Michigan now.
00:25:23 Alex Puchner
And Grand Rapids will be our fifth. It's coming soon.
00:25:28 Alex Puchner
I would love to get out there. I've never been to Grand Rapids and that's that's some good craft beer town from what I hear again, got a few curries there, right? Yeah.
00:25:36 Wendy
At least to.
00:25:36 Wendy
My next question is there any hesitation about opening a brewery in Beer City, USA?
00:25:43 Wendy
I say Beer City, USA.
00:25:46 Alex Puchner
OK, maybe maybe that's why it took us a few years to open in Grand Rapids. No, no, no hesitation at all. We know there's a lot of crap beer drinkers there, and of course, we'll have a great selection of, you know, of founders beers.
00:26:03 Alex Puchner
You know parent new.
00:26:04 Alex Puchner
On shorts, you know, whatever.
00:26:08 Alex Puchner
Yeah, I'm even a fan of it isn't virtue cider nearby? Yeah, it's good cider. So we even have that.
00:26:13 Alex Puchner
On tap? Yeah.
00:26:14 Ken
The virtue cider, the Greg Hall's spot over there. We had him on the show.
00:26:20 Ken
A few years ago, but.
00:26:22 Ken
Yeah you can.
00:26:23 Ken
There's a lot of hard cideries.
00:26:25 Ken
Here in the state of Michigan.
00:26:27 Ken
As well as.
00:26:28 Ken
If you're unfamiliar, of course, on the east side is Ferndale, MI, which is Mead City, USA.
00:26:34 Ken
OK, so if you're a big need drinker, schramms bee nectar, plenty of great materies out here as well. As far as batteries.
00:26:42 Alex Puchner
Yeah, I've had. I've had be an actor. An actor is very good. Yeah, you mentioned Greg Hall. We go way back.
00:26:52 Alex Puchner
We I took a short course in quality control at the Civil Institute in Chicago years ago. This was before BJ and I was, yeah, I was a group of Brewer.
00:27:02 Alex Puchner
And Greg Hall was my lab partner in that in that class A2 week course. And yeah, I've known him, but this would have been close to 30 years ago. I've known him that long.
00:27:16 Wendy
That's amazing. So I.
00:27:19 Wendy
Am actually drinking the tropical hot storm.
00:27:22 Wendy
And I wanted to ask you about it. Tell us a little bit about the beer.
00:27:26 Alex Puchner
Yeah, we're excited about this beer. So this is this was just released as a seasonal beer last week. We have our regular IPA is called Hop Storm.
00:27:37 Alex Puchner
And it's somewhat old school. It's not an in your face, you know, West Coast style or or, you know, juicy or dank IPA, you know, it's fairly.
00:27:47 Alex Puchner
Tame and friendly by by today's IPA standards. So.
00:27:53 Alex Puchner
We wanted to.
00:27:56 Alex Puchner
Introduced an IPA that.
00:27:59 Alex Puchner
Has more of a tropical, you know, contemporary, juicy, hot profile to it. It took us about a year to.
00:28:08 Alex Puchner
Design this beer.
00:28:10 Alex Puchner
I think 5 test batches a number of different hop varieties that contribute. You know, tropical fruit.
00:28:19 Alex Puchner
Aromas and flavors, you know, think papaya passion fruit, definitely some. Some pineapple in there.
00:28:27 Alex Puchner
You know, even use a little Saburo hop to to contribute a a hint of coconut. I don't know if you're you're picking that up, but.
00:28:34 Alex Puchner
And there's also an experimental experimental hop in there. Why TH 1320 that we're we're crazy about that has all kinds of different tropical flavors in it. So our brewing team is really proud of this year. And I have to give our our our R&D director, Aaron Stack a.
00:28:52 Alex Puchner
Lot of credit.
00:28:53 Alex Puchner
We're growing so many test batches and until we perfected, you know, this beer was ended up being exactly what you know we were looking for.
00:29:03 Alex Puchner
I just.
00:29:04 Alex Puchner
It's only been.
00:29:05 Alex Puchner
On tap a few days for a week now, we've been getting very positive feedback, which is encouraging. We're selling more of it than we projected, so I'm I'm stoked. Yeah, we're really proud of. So I'm glad you're enjoying it too.
00:29:22 Alex Puchner
And in fact, yeah, I have a tropical hot storm shirt on here. Rather loud. Yeah, I just got this. And.
00:29:31 Alex Puchner
UM.
00:29:34 Alex Puchner
If you'd like, well, we'll do this. We will ship each of you a tropical hot storm shirt from BJ's and uh.
00:29:44 Ken
Nice not to, not to.
00:29:46 Ken
Slam on other breweries, but those are easily very much more louder shirt than just the logo that we normally get with the a craft beer shirt. So I I definitely will take it.
00:30:01 Ken
Because I will wear it.
00:30:03 Ken
For sure.
00:30:05 Rob
It's just last 40 minutes.
00:30:05 Alex Puchner
Yeah, my wife, my wife, my wife, just saw it and took one look. And it's like you look at it. You.
00:30:10 Alex Puchner
Got to be kidding me.
00:30:12 Alex Puchner
Yeah, you get that kind of reaction.
00:30:15 Wendy
I'll have a little fun. Did you want to jump in there?
00:30:20 Rob
Sure. I I did kind of come up with a question while I was sitting here listening from my own experience of working with Jolly Pumpkin. You guys do 1 offs and you said that you kind of threw in a few central locations. Do you ever have issues with trying to?
00:30:36 Rob
Get like one off beers or?
00:30:38 Rob
Something different to be.
00:30:39 Rob
Released all at the same time and all.
00:30:41 Rob
Of your locations or.
00:30:45 Alex Puchner
Yes, we you know we we do run into those issues, it can be problematic. You know we we tried it you know.
00:30:53 Alex Puchner
With our new seasonal beers, there is a a tapping date, you know and.
00:30:59 Alex Puchner
For one reason or another, and it, it can be logistics, our logistics are ridiculously complicated with the number of markets. You know we we ship to or we run into you know, a production delay for one reason or another. You know a stock fermentation.
00:31:15 Alex Puchner
You know, who knows? We've we've had every issue imaginable that might hold up, you know, shipping a batch. And yeah, that happens. It's, you know, it's part of the job. Yeah. And, you know, luckily, because we're brewing the beer in, you know, multiple locations.
00:31:35 Alex Puchner
You know, if we can't get it, if one brewery can't supply where we plan to supply, we can usually, you know, reconfigure the shipping plan. You know, just to ship some beer from another brewery. At least, you know, to get beer where it needs to be for the launch date.
00:31:51 Alex Puchner
And then fill in that gap when.
00:31:53 Alex Puchner
The batch should be uh.
00:31:54 Alex Puchner
The other brewery is ready.
00:31:55 Alex Puchner
Right.
00:31:58 Rob
Sounds good. And then also another thing I was wondering is how is it that you balance beer trends over the course of time now, especially now you have a national exposure as opposed to being just a local restaurant chain?
00:32:15 Alex Puchner
Yeah, you know.
00:32:17 Alex Puchner
We we do have our two flagships, the.
00:32:20 Alex Puchner
The blonde and the red, as I mentioned. But you know.
00:32:25 Alex Puchner
The rest of our signature beers, many of them have been around for decades, and they're somewhat old school, you know, like our Piranha, Paleo and our Hot Storm IPA. We we did.
00:32:38 Alex Puchner
Revise the recipe for our Corona Pale Ale, which is, you know, modeled after Sienna Vada. It was was all Cascade originally was that was my favorite beer at the time, but now we've, you know we've we've added, you know, some some other hot varieties to it, some Citra and.
00:32:56 Alex Puchner
And and Simcoe and it's it's, you know.
00:32:59 Alex Puchner
A more complex you know, more, more fruity, more hop forward beer than it used to be. So we do change our recipes, but also we constantly introduce new beers, particularly with our our seasonal lineup. And if something is very popular, it'll be around in our seasonal lineup for you know a few years at least.
00:33:18 Alex Puchner
But then you know it falls out of favor.
00:33:20 Alex Puchner
You know, for example, we have a whip beer that was super popular summer seasonal for about 10 years, yeah.
00:33:27 Alex Puchner
We call it nitwit and then we just stopped selling as much, you know, and we realize, you know what? It's run its course. Let's do something else. You know, as a summer season and this year, we did a a Mexican style longer, we call it.
00:33:40 Alex Puchner
Cure VESA and that will be our summer seasonal for a number of years. I'm sure you know until Mexican lagers.
00:33:47 Alex Puchner
A lot of favor, right? So, yeah, you you got to keep up with the trends and.
00:33:52 Alex Puchner
You know, of course, we're even looking at beyond beer. And, you know, initially I really don't want anything to do with, you know, brewing hard seltzers or or anything that wasn't you.
00:34:03 Alex Puchner
Know malt based.
00:34:06 Alex Puchner
But I've certainly come around and really embraced it because it's been a real learning experience.
00:34:12 Alex Puchner
For our brewing team, and I think we're brewing beyond beer beverages that you know will help differentiate us because they're, you know, they're not just another, you know, me too seltzer or me too, you know, hard lemonade. We've got a really unique hard lemonade that.
00:34:31 Alex Puchner
We have launched across California, Arizona, Nevada and you'll see it in Michigan at some point next year. We'll we'll go chain wide with it. It's full of flavor. You know it's higher alcohol and just super, super refreshing. So it's got prickly pear.
00:34:51 Alex Puchner
Along with some lemon and Raspberry juice. Fantastic. And we're also, you know, starting to experiment with with hard cheese, because that's such a a hot category too. And and again there we want to do something, you know unique something different from the other hard's out there.
00:35:12 Rob
And talking about hard cheese and seltzers.
00:35:13 Rob
Do you have any?
00:35:15 Rob
Idea of going to like an any beer.
00:35:17 Rob
Or anything like that or.
00:35:19 Rob
Just do it as a guest tab.
00:35:22 Alex Puchner
Yeah, we we have been experimenting with a beer for a couple of years now. In fact, we were testing it on tap NA versions of three of our most popular beers that Jeremiah read, the biggest blonde and our prana pale ale.
00:35:35 Alex Puchner
And we just, we were really happy with the product, but we just weren't selling enough to justify. You know, I'll, I'll be your line for it. Having it on tap.
00:35:47 Alex Puchner
That category is continuing to grow as you know. So you know, maybe we were a little ahead of our time, I don't know. But you know, we plan on continuing to pursue that category and I find at my age, I'm drinking you know more and more in a.
00:36:02 Alex Puchner
Beer just because I.
00:36:06 Alex Puchner
I can't handle.
00:36:06 Alex Puchner
As much alcohol as I used to.
00:36:09 Alex Puchner
And any beer has gotten so much.
00:36:10 Alex Puchner
Better you know than.
00:36:11 Alex Puchner
It used to be, no, we were using.
00:36:14 Alex Puchner
Vacuum distillation. For a while, we're starting to experiment now with arrested fermentation. It's a more cost effective way to make any beer, and we're hoping we can get just as good a product that way. But it's again, it's a great learning experience. So yeah, we're having a lot of fun.
00:36:31 Alex Puchner
With that category, too nice.
00:36:34 Rob
Do you have anything to add, Ken?
00:36:36 Ken
Yeah. With regards to the NA beer, obviously having been in the industry for so long, the flavors of even your, your mainstays, your labat NA's, your Bud double O's like these beers have, don't taste like what they tasted like even 10 years ago, let alone today or my pallets completely changed.
00:36:56 Ken
What are? Let's let's get a little bit about you. What are some of your favorite NDA's to to crush while you're, you know, taking a break between beers?
00:37:07 Alex Puchner
You you get athletic.
00:37:09 Alex Puchner
Athletic beer there. Yeah. Yeah, I I would say.
00:37:11
Yes, we do.
00:37:13 Alex Puchner
They have absolutely set the standard.
00:37:17 Alex Puchner
Absolutely. I mean everything they've done is fantastic.
00:37:24 Alex Puchner
Another beer and it it really impresses me as Guinness. You know, you you do, you taste the any Guinness side by side with the draft Guinness and it is really hard to tell the difference and that's that's pretty, pretty pretty remarkable.
00:37:38 Alex Puchner
And I will tell you.
00:37:39 Alex Puchner
That Heineken 00 is is a fantastic and a beer too, another one where it's really hard to tell that it's it's an NA beer. I don't drink a lot of Heineken, but that's an extremely well made in a beer.
00:37:52 Ken
Yeah, as we.
00:37:54 Ken
Got into a more national audience due to COVID and not being in a studio over in Metro Detroit. We actually had athletic brewing on both John and Bill hopped onto our show to talk about it and I believe Bill was in San Diego at the new facility and we got like a visual.
00:38:13 Ken
Tour of the new facility and it is ridiculous what the?
00:38:16 Ken
They're doing, but they're doing it right now. You also said you had kind of like hesitation within seltzers and I think a lot of people felt the exact same way when they saw the seltzers like, truly and, you know, like milk ultra seltzers, you know, they're like flavor ish seltzers not flavor full.
00:38:36 Ken
Have you had the opportunity to try any of the more larger flavorful shelter styles like untitled art or homes or even odd side here in Michigan?
00:38:48 Alex Puchner
Yeah, I have not we. But we have, you know similar seltzers in in Southern California where crap rivers are. Yeah, they're.
00:38:56 Alex Puchner
They're embracing that, you know, big flavor, you know, seltzer with with now with more alcohol. Not not a, you know, better for you, you know, kind of seltzer, like like truly or or white cloth. Funny stretch. You know, it's full of sugar.
00:39:11 Alex Puchner
But yeah, those those are selling very well and we have a number of those on TAP.
00:39:18 Alex Puchner
As guest beers and our our restaurants and they're they're doing very well, yes. Yeah. So I think that's the that's the direction that hard seltzer is going. It's good to see.
00:39:27 Ken
Well, staying on the same line, you know, craft beer to go has always been like a staple for breweries like breweries have been able to, you know, sell their beer outside crowlers growlers, especially crawlers. Now with crowler machines been.
00:39:41 Ken
So you know, standard in a lot of breweries, but you're starting to see with the competition of hard seltzers, hard teas, hard lemonades, craft cocktails to go where people can buy RTD's or even, you know, mixed at the bar cocktails to go do.
00:39:59 Ken
You see that eating?
00:40:00 Ken
Into your beer sales at all.
00:40:02 Ken
Or do you really see like a separation of competition between the two styles of alcoholic drinks?
00:40:09 Alex Puchner
Well, if if anything it's, you know, it's.
00:40:12 Alex Puchner
It's helping our.
00:40:14 Alex Puchner
Are have to go sales because you know we are we are selling the margaritas out out the door where we where we can do it and.
00:40:21 Alex Puchner
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, if if there is a silver lining to the pandemic, there were a number of states where large states where before COVID we couldn't sell.
00:40:32 Alex Puchner
You're out the door, so you know, whereas we were selling 6 packs to go.
00:40:37 Alex Puchner
In California, we we couldn't do it in many other states like Texas and and Florida where we have a number of restaurants and it you know first it became a a temporary.
00:40:47 Alex Puchner
Privilege, you know.
00:40:48 Alex Puchner
To help restaurants survive pandemic and and then it became permanent. So you know, we are now selling and the six packs out the door.
00:40:58 Alex Puchner
Along with we have we have crawler machines in some some of our restaurants, but they're hard to maintain. You know when you have, you know 215 restaurants, 215 crawler machines would be.
00:41:08 Alex Puchner
Would be a a challenge so you know we prefer to sell 6 packs out the door and bottles. Our 750 mill bottles along with cocktails. Why not?
00:41:20 Ken
Well, you mentioned 215 stores. I think Rob kind of touched on it like quality control is definitely key. I read the I believe Joshua Noel book about the Anheuser-Busch buyout of.
00:41:36 Ken
Silent barrel aged stouts and selling out I think, was the name of it and one of the things in that book is they talk about Brewing Goose Island 312 at the ABC New York facility and how they just could never get it right. How do you manage different water?
00:41:56 Ken
Styles going from like maybe well water to river water to tap like how do you manage all?
00:42:01 Ken
Of this, so that the.
00:42:03 Ken
Jeremiah red that I get from Reno tastes the exact same as the Jeremiah red from one of your California facilities. Tastes the exact same.
00:42:11 Ken
As the Texas.
00:42:13 Ken
How do you, since you're the senior VP?
00:42:16 Ken
Like manage all that quality control.
00:42:19 Alex Puchner
That's a great question. It's not easy and you know it's not just our breweries we're managing. You know how our our beers are made at at 2 contract Brewers to we have very regular taste panels, blind taste panels where we taste samples of each beer from from all of all the breweries where it's.
00:42:39 Alex Puchner
Where it's brew.
00:42:40 Alex Puchner
And also draft versus canned.
00:42:43 Alex Puchner
And yeah, we we find differences and you know, we work you.
00:42:47 Alex Puchner
Know work to.
00:42:49 Alex Puchner
Make sure those beers are, you know, more consistent the next time we have.
00:42:52 Alex Puchner
A taste panel so that that's one way you mentioned the water, which is, yeah, absolutely critical. You know, water chemistry is so different from.
00:43:04 Alex Puchner
One city to another and and and. You know also on some some locations we used to be in Arizona.
00:43:15 Alex Puchner
The water was a land of, you know, 40 different wells at any one time that you know that that blend would change not just from month to month, but even even from day-to-day. So you know, you don't know what you're growing with.
00:43:31 Alex Puchner
So how do we?
00:43:32 Alex Puchner
How we solve that problem? Well, we have. We have RO systems and all of our breweries. So and yeah. So we strip everything out of the water 1st and then depending on what style we're brewing, you know we'll we'll add minerals back in soft or hard water whatever we're looking for for that style of beer.
00:43:50 Alex Puchner
But yeah, that's that's saved us as our assistance.
00:43:54 Ken
And for people like me, who that.
00:43:57 Ken
That phrase goes over my head. What's an RO system?
00:44:01 Alex Puchner
Oh, reverse osmosis. Yeah, got 10.
00:44:03 Ken
Ohh OK I I know those words. I don't know what.
00:44:05 Alex Puchner
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:05 Ken
They are.
00:44:07 Ken
That that's one of those where I didn't catch.
00:44:08 Alex Puchner
I got a little one at home.
00:44:09 Ken
The acronym.
00:44:13 Ken
Before we, we kind of end the show, we end the show with something nice, light hearted. We're gonna ask you a final question. I do have one question and that is this Oktoberfest.
00:44:24 Ken
This is a German style lager. This is brewed at 5.6%. I do see it's brewed in Temple TX. It says it right on the Cam. It's got the nice little independent logo on there. So for you, craft your fans who are trying to be all high and mighty about BJ's over here, this beer is so damn good. What?
00:44:44 Ken
Is give me a little rundown of the Oktoberfest. What am I tasting? What am I?
00:44:51 Ken
You know, feeling oh, my God, this is.
00:44:53 Alex Puchner
Good. Thank you.
00:44:53 Ken
So kind of kind of at a loss for words, but.
00:44:57 Ken
Yeah, but so that this isn't a.
00:44:59 Ken
A martson correct. This is an Oktoberfest style beer.
00:45:03 Alex Puchner
Well, there's somewhat interchangeable. No. Yeah, I mean, the history is that, you know, the festival, the October Fest Festival, you know, precedes the the beer October Fest and and Merrison because it was tapped, you know, in September traditionally, you know, log it all summer long.
00:45:05
OK.
00:45:24 Alex Puchner
This is about.
00:45:24 Alex Puchner
That means.
00:45:25 Alex Puchner
And then tapped in September, the beginning of the new growing season, it became, you know, a natural to to drink October 5th. That American style beer at the Oktoberfest festival. So it became, you know, the official beer of October Fest. And it's often, you know, called Oktoberfest beer, but it is basically merits. And though there are Oktoberfest.
00:45:46 Alex Puchner
Style beers that are taller than your typical medicine, so there's two versions of Oktoberfest, one that is.
00:45:53 Alex Puchner
You know an amp.
00:45:55 Alex Puchner
Similar to Merikan and one that is a paler style of October fest, ours is a more traditional style, also somewhat a little bit of an American style October fest because it's a little hoppier not not a hoppy beer, but a little more balanced with the hops than a traditional the variant.
00:46:14 Alex Puchner
October festival, but I love this style. This is one of yeah, our original seasonal beers along with the Pumpkin Ale. It is our top selling seasonal beer, though tropical hop Storm might overtake.
00:46:28 Alex Puchner
And we'll see.
00:46:29 Alex Puchner
And this is another beer that we just launched last week week. I think we we launched earlier and earlier every year, so well ahead of October Fest season which you know starts next month. But yeah, I I just love this beer and I yeah, I took home a.
00:46:48 Alex Puchner
The six pack last night, and I'm sure it'll be gone by the by.
00:46:51 Alex Puchner
The end of the weekend.
00:46:53 Ken
Is there a reason why I can't have the style?
00:46:55 Ken
Of Beer year round.
00:46:59 Alex Puchner
Well, look for.
00:46:59 Alex Puchner
Marison now there are Brewers that make American year round and yeah, it's close enough.
00:47:07 Ken
Alright, well, as we end the show, of course each and every week we end with a final question, give you the opportunity to of course plug the upcoming BJ's in Grand Rapids Beer City, USA officially by some website and it's been proclaimed that therefore it is true. So I'm going to actually start with myself for the final questions.
00:47:27 Ken
Usually I end the show, but I have one more question that I have wanted to ask you since you started talking and was there ever a beer that you made that you had high hopes for that it just didn't?
00:47:41 Ken
Make whether it's with your audience or craft your fans at one of your.
00:47:45 Ken
Other brew pubs.
00:47:48 Alex Puchner
Yeah. See, I mentioned that I'm a a big Belgian Ale fan and you know, I was drinking sour beers long before they, you know, became popular in in the US and yeah, I I recall brewing and brewing, you know, Flemish.
00:48:04 Alex Puchner
Sour brown? That was just. Yeah, just we couldn't begin to sell. It was way ahead of us. Sign. This is we had a brewery in Portland.
00:48:15 Alex Puchner
Back in the day. So this was, yeah, at least 20 years ago. And now trying to sell a sour beer in the.
00:48:23 Alex Puchner
In the US at that time, I don't.
00:48:24 Alex Puchner
Know what I was thinking?
00:48:27 Wendy
Could you give it a go now?
00:48:28 Alex Puchner
Oh, yes, no, we we we have and it's definitely I'm still a huge fan of sour beers and we we brewed a number of them over the years. We we did a collaboration in fact last summer with New Belgium you know and they they taught us a lot.
00:48:35 Ken
With the.
00:48:43 Alex Puchner
About how to grow sour beers, especially on a on a larger scale. You know we we shipped to all of our restaurants. So that was a really neat experience.
00:48:53 Ken
I believe New Belgium, along with Ohh Pierre Jolly Pumpkin with Ron Jefferies and of course Jester King down in Texas like.
00:49:01 Alex Puchner
Yeah, I know, I.
00:49:02 Alex Puchner
Know Ron. He's he's awesome. What a what? A talented Brewer. And I got to ask, can I ask you something real quick? I I almost forgot. So I have a connection with the brewery there.
00:49:08 Ken
Of course.
00:49:14 Alex Puchner
In my early Brew Pub brewing days before BJ's, does the name Drew CR?
00:49:21 Alex Puchner
Ring a bell or Royal Oak Brewing Company? So I I I brewed the first batches at that brewery and the connection is that.
00:49:24 Rob
Yeah, Royal Oak brewing.
00:49:26 Ken
Company still up in existing.
00:49:34 Alex Puchner
Drew. Ciara. Hood, I think started that brewery with his brother-in-law. He was the general manager at the Brew Pub in Huntington Beach that I brewed at my first brewing gig.
00:49:45 Alex Puchner
And then he moved to Michigan. Was after you got married, where his wife's family is from and and started Royal Oak Brewery and a few others in the area. I.
00:49:52 Alex Puchner
Believe, but anyway.
00:49:54 Alex Puchner
He had hired a young Brewer who, you know, at the time didn't have a lot of experience, Wayne Burns, his name. He's a successful Brewer in Colorado these days, but.
00:50:05 Alex Puchner
Anyway, so yeah, Alex, you know, come on out and help Wayne with the first round of batches. He's he's going to need your help. So yeah, I I was there. We brewed nonstop.
00:50:15 Alex Puchner
Barely any sleep we've brewed nonstop for like 4 days. Pretty crazy but.
00:50:19 Rob
Yeah, the the.
00:50:20 Ken
Royal Oak Brewery actually brought home gold for their Kohl's last year. Jeremy Altier is their current head Brewer. They.
00:50:27 Ken
Do own 3.
00:50:28 Ken
Breweries. That's the Rochester Mills Brew pub where your friend Todd Parker is the head Brewer over there.
00:50:35 Ken
The Royal Oak.
00:50:35 Ken
Brewery and the Detroit Beer company. So that's where.
00:50:38 Ken
Dave Sciorra is still making his mark here in brewing in Michigan 100% in two months or month and 1/2 when you go to GA BF make sure.
00:50:48 Ken
Her also used to own ohh.
00:50:53 Ken
Todd's trying to correct me here. Make sure when you go to JBF this year it should you go try the coach from great from the Royal Oak Brewery. Jeremy Altier will probably be there as well.
00:51:08 Ken
Phenomenal Brewer. I can't talk enough, but what they do, still at the Royal Oak Brewery is their coaching hour.
00:51:15 Ken
Where they serve coal like coal should be served, and one of our guests, not guests. This house me fans. Mary is saying that she'll be there tomorrow. I believe for the coaching hour. So that was my question. Wendy, what's your final question for Alex here?
00:51:34 Wendy
So as many of our listeners know, I.
00:51:37 Wendy
Love to travel?
00:51:39 Wendy
What is the one?
00:51:40 Wendy
Reason that I should come to BJ's.
00:51:45 Alex Puchner
One reason? Well, you know.
00:51:47 Wendy
Well, you can give us a couple.
00:51:48 Wendy
If you want.
00:51:49 Wendy
But at least one.
00:51:52 Alex Puchner
Well, yeah, I I would absolutely. You know, say the beer, but not just, you know, one beer. You've got to sample the variety of beer we offer. And I think, you know, we have something for everyone, you know, get get a flight, start with a flight sample everything you can. Two flights is perfect.
00:52:12 Alex Puchner
And pair it, definitely pair it.
00:52:15 Alex Puchner
With, you know.
00:52:16 Alex Puchner
BJ's Deep Dish Pizza, one of our sandwiches.
00:52:21 Alex Puchner
One of our entrees, Diana Pale ale paired with our New Orleans jambalaya.
00:52:24 Alex Puchner
Can't beat that?
00:52:26 Alex Puchner
So perfect place to pair beer and food.
00:52:33 Ken
Wendy's laughing because I am a a anti flight candidate. I believe flights should be abolished in breweries. We actually did a A.
00:52:44 Ken
One of those.
00:52:45 Ken
Polls on Instagram Ed decided to do that, and a 30% of people agree with me, which I was actually kind of shocked that three out of 10 people agree that we need to get rid of flights.
00:52:58 Wendy
Because they only.
00:52:59 Wendy
Drink one or two types of styles of beer.
00:53:01 Ken
I drink plenty of.
00:53:01
For the people.
00:53:02 Ken
Styles of beer.
00:53:04 Ken
I just don't.
00:53:05 Ken
See usually many styles of the ones that I like, you know, when's the last time you went to a brewery and you saw an ESB and English mile to brown or red I you see IPA, IPA, IPA.
00:53:19 Ken
I'm not going to see that at BJ's, though, because *** **** these two, the Oktoberfest and the Jeremiah Red, I'm I'm I'm going to the Livonia 1:00 tomorrow to get a a growler of the red to go.
00:53:30 Alex Puchner
That's what I want to hear, all right.
00:53:33 Ken
Rob, what's your final question?
00:53:35 Rob
My final question is this going to be how many states do you guys have locations in and what's the next state that you plan on entering?
00:53:43 Alex Puchner
Yeah. We're in 30 states now.
00:53:46 Alex Puchner
The new estate being Illinois, we're finally in the Chicago market, Orland Park. Not not far from you and the next one will be the next state is Wisconsin. We're opening in. In Brookfield. There. That'll be our first opening next year. I think in in in April of next year so.
00:54:06 Alex Puchner
Yeah. Wisconsin next. Yeah, we.
00:54:09 Rob
Very nice.
00:54:10 Alex Puchner
Yeah, we, we we like it in your neck of.
00:54:12 Alex Puchner
The woods. They drink a lot of bitter.
00:54:14 Rob
They sure do.
00:54:16 Ken
All right, Alex. Pucker. Putner. Putner. Where can they find BJ's? Can they is. Is there like, an online website? Is there social media? What's the details about Grand Rapids upcoming? Give us the rundown.
00:54:35
Before we go.
00:54:37 Alex Puchner
Yeah, if you're not sure whether the BJ's location, I'll go to our website, there's a location locator, just type in your city or state website is.
00:54:47 Alex Puchner
Bjsrestaurants.com.
00:54:51 Alex Puchner
And Grand Rapids is not our next opening. We're opening in Rochester, NY in a.
00:54:58 Alex Puchner
Month or two.
00:54:59 Alex Puchner
In September and then in in October, early October, we opened in in Grand Rapids. That'll be our last opening this year.
00:55:08 Alex Puchner
And yeah, I I want to get to Grand Rapids. I have never been. Let me know if you'd like.
00:55:15 Alex Puchner
To be there.
00:55:16 Alex Puchner
For our soft opening and I'll I'll make sure we take care of you and I may even.
00:55:22 Alex Puchner
Join you there with the board too.
00:55:23 Ken
We we we hope to see you there and we'll be there to help you to take a little Grand Rapids tour and get some of the nice spots out there.
00:55:35 Ken
That is going to do it better on draft 325, of course, like us on all social medias. That's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, untapped, YouTube, kick, Twitch, Twitter. Everything is at better on draft because no matter what you think of your beer, we.
00:55:50 Ken
Think it's.
00:55:53 Ken
Better on draft, have a.
00:55:54 Wendy
Good night. Cheers. Cheers.