Andrew Fineran and Chris Sidwa - Batch Brewing

It was always part of the plan to put a brew in, but for many years it it was just a plan. It's a hundred percent acquisition of Green Beacon. No, we had a chat with everybody. Anyone would have seen this coming a mile away. Super simple and direct question.

Hi, I'm Bruce News Editor Matt KirkyGuard and that's just what we're here to do, talk about beer. And this week we have a very important conversation about beer and owning a brewery, as I catch up with Andrew Finerin and Chris Sidwar from Batch Brewing. It's an important conversation for me because there is an element of the craft beer movement and the small brewing industry's inherent underdog nature that naturally encourages in us a desire to support the industry and tell its story.

But often only by way of its successes and not its challenges. Allied to this, a metric that is often used to describe the health of the industry and create an aura of success is the number of breweries that exist and are opening, as if more breweries automatically means a healthier industry. Well no one wants to talk it down.

This unchecked positivity around what is already a very attractive industry continues to lure budding brewery owners because, well, who wouldn't want to own a brewery when everything from an outsider's perspective looks rosy? This mindset ignores the challenges that I hear brewers and business owners talking about when the microphone is off, and there's not a positive story to be told. And for a host of reasons, business owners don't want to talk about the challenges.

plans that haven't quite come off, the things they didn't anticipate when they started, and how they've had to change and adapt the business as it has gone along. And one of the biggest challenges that I'm hearing increasingly is the sheer number of breweries opening, with the volume of beer able to be produced seemingly growing much more quickly than the market for selling it is.

And that's why I'm very grateful to Andrew and Chris for this conversation. They've been willing to engage in a conversation about the challenges they have faced and the things that they didn't know or anticipate in addition to their plans. We have spoken to Chris and Andrew a couple of times on the podcast before, and you may want to have a listen back to those earlier podcasts, including the one around the time of their equity crowdfunding, to give this one a little context.

It's a really valuable chat about the headwinds that the industry is facing and the challenges of running a business, even in a passion-based industry such as craft brewing. I won't say enjoy this conversation, but I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

Andrew Finnerin and Chris Sidwar, welcome to Beer is a Conversation. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. Thank you. No, pr I really appreciate you guys and uh you know, uh as I said in the intro, this is, you know, a a conversation that continues on from a couple of past conversations that we've had and it's batch is a

you know, i it is a business that I, you know, admire and respect very much and you guys personally, you know, are guys that I've followed very closely for a lot of reasons. And it's one of the reasons is because of your willingness to engage in some of the the the

difficult conversations that I think, you know, the the industry needs to to talk about, um, you know, in in in an industry that's sometimes built on hype. So uh, you know, thank you for for agreeing to to to have this chat. Love the opportunity. Thanks for having us. No problem. The last time we spoke uh officially was

um when you were launching the equity crowdfunding. And, you know, a as I said in the intro to that, I'm not sure if you've gone back to listen to it since, you know, it it was a it was a conversation you guys were, you know selling uh if for for want of a better term, selling the dream of the business, you know, sort of uh in g in engaging people to invest in the business. Um

which a has a role and I you know, m my role as a journalist is to sort of ask questions about that. So you know, w w we we had what was a when I went back to listen to it a great conversation, but

Talk to me about the journey that you've been on, you know, since you uh you know, had that equity crowdfunding. The journey's been an interesting one. Um And we raised we raised money um and we went straight to work on to hire um uh a new head brewer um and a new key account manager slash head of sales. And the day that they came on I think we went into lockdown for three months.

So we started to kind of we just assumed that uh the lockdown wouldn't last as long and f I think it was our longest one. um in Sydney. So we kinda kept on working out um what our plans were to To continue on. We said we were going to start new venues. We um we intended on growing wholesale. The work we did on kind of some product development.

in kind of with Luigi kind of looking at um core range and kind of making some tweaks to recipes to get our our beers more um shelf stable and um all that kind of stuff and a little bit more consistent, um, was all ticking along. our um wholesale did have a have a a decent spike. I think we um And there's a couple things to that with uh with our new um head of sales kind of looked like we were kind of going into

post lockdown, kind of post COVID in a really positive way. Um, so we were going into Christmas last year, like it was all looking up and it was great. Um and then Omicron hit us and created a For lack of a better term, market destabilization, I guess. Like there's people there's a lot of people that are not confident, um, uh in the market, spending money, there's nervousness, there's you know, the war in Ukraine, there's um a whole a whole bunch of stuff happening.

And we weren't really looking at the wholesale side of the business'cause that during that time we were trying to we not trying, we were buying bucket boys and we started to tee that up pre Christmas. Um and so like we didn't not we didn't take our eye off the ball of wholesale, but we um we we thought the a couple bad months would go away and it didn't.

Um and while we were integrating this new business, um, we had realized our wholesale sales had really kind of fallen off and we we under we only had two people um in that department. Um and it's underrepresented for um, you know, pretty much uh almost every other um brewery has invested a lot more um in their wholesale sales departments. Um and so you'd think we would be saving money, but th we just weren't hitting target.

So that was a bit of a watch out um for us. At the same time we were integrating um and making changes in um the bucket boys business and you know, seeing some positive sides to that, but also dealing with um, you know, the market. being um you know in a in a downturn. Um so it it it's basically been I think I think this past year, sorry, the kind of like or past year and a half now has really been one of the toughest

years um we've ever had. Um So, you know, we we raised money, we went into lockdown. We acquired another business, we integrated that business, all during extremely tough conditions, and now we've you know, obviously I we've gone into, you know, a new new form

um with Local Drinks Collective, which we think is um the way forward well not we think we is the way forward for us. Um you know, it it's like fighting in that um you know, you can either be A brew pub, kind of what we were talking about before, you can be a brew pub and you're you're there and you're working, um, it's your business. If you want to go away, the whole business kind of shuts down for a bit, but it's you know, your expectations are a little bit less on what

um the business can earn and what you can make. And then you've got bigger businesses that um I don't know what the threshold is of those bigger businesses, but you know, whatever. Let's just twenty million dollar a year revenue turnover or something like that, where there's a or or maybe it's it's probably less than that, but you've got um you know they're more robust um uh

yeah um function business functions that can you know that can go with when people are in and out. Um and we're sitting in the middle where we've been trying to grow this business to a point where we're able to not necessarily step away but change our business role. So the business can can exist if we are not in it for a little while, um, whether it be two weeks or

a month. Um and you know, it's just uh there's that middle mid middle ground where a lot of breweries are right now. This is that's um that's extremely tough. Um so and yeah, we we basically even after craft money we still found ourselves in that in that position and I imagine a lot of people are in that position.

And that's where we think local drinks is going to you know, if we if we get the right efficiencies and the right economies of scale, which it's it's all playing in the r in the right direction at the moment, um, then we can actually start to be able to see some of those um some of that growth and some of those efficiencies and and the reliance on certain people in the business and stuff like that kinda goes away'cause we have a a really robust team that all earns their keep, so to speak.

Chris, is there anything before is there anything that you want to add or follow up on? Yeah, absolutely. The i I mean the summary Andrew just gave is is spot on. I don't disagree with anything there. Uh just delving into a couple of points. You know, the the crowdfunding

It gave us the opportunity to make some some significant investments. I mean, we raised one point five million dollars less a bit of for fees and we started spending it immediately. As Andrew said, that was, you know, all along the plan was very quickly to get uh a head brewer to alleviate some of this uh responsibilities that I was performing. Uh someone who'd be on the ground, physically present every day to, you know, build the team uh make more robust processes, build better beers.

Uh and and he did that. And you know, the beer quality improved, the beer was consistent, you know, we were executing it our small batch venue with great frequency, putting out some incredible mixed packs and and other uh interesting flavors, constantly innovating, doing what we set out to do, while at the same time able to, you know, focus more of our main production facility onto some higher volume core beers.

And we also invested in a in a head salesperson, which we'd, you know, done once before. This time we went out to somebody with a little bit more experience, more relevant experience. Uh he'd been a part of a business that had grown from The leaderage we were doing till leaderage we wanted to do, he had the connections, and he and his team did put the beer on shelves.

You know, in one of our final conversations before we decided that we had to to end our relationship together, you know, he pointed out to me that, you know, they that they had achieved in over indexing versus some other breweries of our size, uh shelf space. So the beer was out there. Um, but the market, as Andrew said, just went to complete shit on us. So, you know, maybe that was our product offering, maybe that was, you know, not keeping up with hype, uh

Maybe that was focusing too much on majors and and ignoring some of the independence. I mean, there's a there's a thousand things you can do with hindsight. Um but ultimately Consumers didn't show up with their wallet and and that meant that, you know, we didn't achieve what we set out to achieve and and the roller coaster, you know, had to come to an end. So we unfortunately did have to make some redundancies and and regroup.

And, you know, we're we're back to a point where, you know, we are operating at a good level and, you know, are the early signs of what we've achieved with the Local Drinks Collective are indicating that, you know, it it's moving in the right direction. And again, that could be, you know, just the market becoming more normal or or certain things that we're doing right.

uh you know, we'll have to regroup in six or twelve months and and revisit it. I don't I don't know what the answer is. There's so much in that to to to pick up on. But I guess the the the the first thing they also say is that you know I often as an outside observer I'll have observations about things that I've seen, you know,'cause we get so we we we follow businesses so closely and you you observe things and you get to look at what others do. So

If I make an observation in the form of a question um and you don't accept the ob observation, um please absolutely push back because uh I I I wanna know where my uh observation is wrong. But If we if we can just sort of step back even before the uh equity crowdfunding and as I said, you guys have been around for nine years now, coming up ten years.

And in in the the the letter from the founders and the equity crowdfunding you talked about the original business plan, which included six fermenters, um and your projections showed you growing into those tanks over the course of five years. And you're very much wrong by five months

you'd been embraced by your local community that your beers uh you know, you had to grow um doubling the amount of um very, very quickly. So clearly the initial strategy of being and I think even the name from when we first spoke the th th the aim was to be, you know, a very significant member of the S Sydney in a West community making the beers that you wanted to make, you know, batch by batch. Um and and i is is that a fair summary of, you know, the the the the opening plan?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh we we didn't have relationships with with major retailers. We were working with you know, to the degree we had wholesale. It was to, you know, very local bars, uh, restaurants, bottle shops, um, pubs and And yeah, the the product mix was was very varied and you know we were doing what we set out to do, which was, you know, explore the world of beer and

you know, sort of upend what was the market at the time, which was heavily contract brewed. I mean, if you went out to to brew pack you'd see ninety five percent of the beers on shelves at, you know, the vintage sellers and and BWS at the time. um, you know, sitting there in their warehouse. But yeah, there were there were not a lot of people doing You know, varied product offerings, transparent. You know, we at the time we did not believe in contract brewing because.

a lot of the contract brewing didn't feel authentic to us, so we set out to, you know, i install our own tanks, make that capital investment, open the door every weekend and and let people in and see exactly what we did and Uh and that's what we did for a long time and that's you know, that's what we You know, of course beers do grow and those tanks get you know taken up by that, we have the ability to

continue to welcome people in with with different offerings. But as we've done that and lived that, you know, the market changes around us and you know, the consumer does and as well. So the the whole industry's matured to the point where you

You can't throw a rock in Marrickville and and the inner west of Sydney without hitting another brewery. Which is i is what I find interesting. You know, the the whole question of growth because I listened to that foundation story and how you embrace Did you ever reach a point in that stage where when you doubled the tanks and, you know, at year one, year two, where you were making beer, your community was coming in?

Um, you know, y you were probably pushing capacity for, you know, what you could actually make versus demand. Was there ever a point at that stage that the business was inherently sustainable where you could have just have said, this is great? We're on a nice little um treadmill here where if we just if we can just maintain this level and not go backwards.

we can have a a a nice little business that pays us, you know, proportionately to the effort we're putting in. Uh, from memory, yes. I think we were there f for a little while. Yeah, we definitely were. I mean

We we recovered our initial and we invested capital, our personal capital, alongside some early investors. Yeah. Uh we invested Um we we as my you know, my family and Andrew's family, our wives included, we invested a a fair decent chunk of the initial startup capital, but we recovered some of that very early on by you know um some securitized debt against our Sinless Steel. Uh and then, you know, what wasn't

able to convert into debt, we recovered through profits, you know, very quickly and uh and we were paying ourselves, you know, in very short order, a decent salary. Uh we were, you know, hiring staff at the same point. alleviating some of the stress that that was on both of our shoulders so that we could uh run the business as well as brew the beer and sell the beer and move all the beer. But to to think that we could have stayed there and had a a sustainable business

uh for the long term. I I think that would have been a bit of a pipe dream given all the new entrants into the industry. uh you know there i there is an element of of grow just to keep up. Uh I don't know if that's an illusion or or a myth or if it's a fact, but If you rest on your laurels and stand still, you know, the new people coming in are definitely going to eat your lunch. You have to stay, you know, deliberately innovative and, you know, w making strong connections with your market.

Uh, so that, you know, you're not undercut and and, you know, pushed out. Yeah, and I think I think part of that, like, that's why, you know, I guess for us we you know, we're motivated um people and we wanna we'd like to see growth and we you know I I personally get bored if we're just s sitting there doing nothing. So, you know, we kinda started talking about we we um added all the tanks we kinda done we could do at Merrickville and and we had our sales team, we had good sales and

we said, a lot of people at that time, a lot of people were saying, you know, that you m you naturally move on to a bigger brewery. But at at the time, for us, we kind of We had kind of consciously decided that we don't need we didn't need to have huge uh like build a massive brewery and um have national distribution. We didn't it was not something that was

You know, we wanted to try if we could sell all our beer in Sydney at that time, that that was for us that that made us happy. So, um we uh you know, we we looked at building small batch and kind of going down a smaller path so we could test beers out and kind of do really s fast runs of uh and small runs of just new and innovative products. Um And so that was the kind of start of, you know, that the next phase of kind of like, okay, what are what are we gonna do? And then

Um unfortunately for small batch though, as soon as we opened that we had bushfires a couple months later and then went straight into COVID. I mean that that that venue's never had a um solid run at um like what r real success could look like for that venue has just been kind of it keeps on getting hit with um all lockdowns and all that kind of stuff. But when it when it fires, it fires and it's awesome. And I I I guess that's the the the the the challenge. The the last

you know, two and a half years have been unrelenting. Um, and a as an industry observer, you know, I try and pull out, well, what is the the Covid effect and and what is the the the um you know, the speed bumps um that that Covid has put in place and what is just the natural

gre what I call gravity, you know, gravity to growth. The the the the business challenges that would have been there in any way. Um And, you know, speaking to a lot of breweries, some of them did really well during COVID because on one hand there was government money, you know, wage subsidies coming in to protect jobs, but then also there we had this

brief period where uh package beer was just going through the roof for a lot of businesses. And, you know, a again, as an observer, I've seen some businesses who seem to think that that was going to continue and once venues opened again that seems to have fallen off a little bit. So it's a really hard one from my perspective to to look at what were the systemic

uh you know or structural challenges that craft breweries are facing and would have faced anyway, regardless of um yeah it particularly in terms of growing. And you you've already alluded to there are so many more breweries that you have to compete against.

um, you know, even just in your backyard. Yeah. I think going back like I think I look at it, you could sit there and say and even more so the challenges are we had six forty mil bottles And then originally, which weren't as conducive to a broader distribution base, because they were

They're heavy and you know uh they didn't cost any more to ship, but environmentally they they do take a toll on the environment'cause they'cause they are heavier. They they do cost a little more to ship'cause you fit less volume in a box than on a pallet, but Um yes true. Um so we switched to the four forty mil cans uh and we were running both uh four forties and bottles for a while.

Um and then we realized that um you know eventually bottles are just gonna die off so we switched the four forty mil cans. We really wanted to be different with that, but going I I f I forg I think it was going into COVID.

we started looking at the three seventy five mills'cause we're just sitting there saying, Well, it's just economies of scale. We really need to actually switch the three seventy fives'cause again, as a shipping thing, sixteen packs of four forty mils versus twenty four packs um of um three seventy five's and it makes more sense. It's better shelf price. All that other kind of stuff.

So we're looking at that and y y you're trying to keep up with the market and the and the changes that are happening and what the market demands ha uh are. And then we move into um COVID and for f again like the first year of COVID. was, okay, well let's just that's fine. Let's put everything in we'll back off the kegs and we'll put e everything in a package. We're actually very agile, very nimble, like to be able to do stuff like this, we built the business to do that.

So we were putting out limited releases and I remember um You know, like going into the first round of lockdowns. And we had uh some beers, we put some playlists together and everybody's efe effectively for a year, everybody's like looking for some fun stuff to do. And so if you had a new beer

that was your like your entertainment for the week and then I don't think anyone listened to these playlists I put together, but like for me I was like, Oh yeah, well I remember them. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, listen to this and um and I'm I'm thinking

Mole Publano. Um and I was like like oh man, this is great. Like this you know, people like we're giving you know, giving somebody something to look forward to and a lot as a a lot of other breweries were. And I think going back into the second lockdown, there was still a bit of that. We did um

um Collabathon, uh which was supposed to be a big event at Small Batch but got cancelled so we packaged everything and everyone bought those and there's a lot of fun uh that we had with that as as with the advent calendars with Bucket Boys and we put together the podcast with those.

So that'cause people were still kind of like still a bit of a hangover from all that. But like people were um you know, everybody was into that and then And then as the market changed coming into this this current year, even with Omicron, even like the conference, it's just all of a sudden

all the new and fun limit releases that the brewer that breweries had been putting out had and we had all kind of had success with, just all of a sudden people I don't know if people got sick of them or what it was, but

that's really d dropped off like a cliff. Um to a point to a point where uh it looks like core range people are kinda going back into core range and my hypothesis on that is when when times are tough and you have less money to spend, you basically want to go back to something that you know you're not taking a chance on a beer that you might hate and spend twenty bucks on that can. Yeah.

So I think a lot of people right now are sitting they're saying, Well, we we have we we we they still like limited releases, don't get me wrong, but I think it's like the way I'm looking at that now is kind of like, Okay, well the limited releases we put out, like Chapeau or something like that, are things that people know every year are going to be

Um, they expect they'll look forward to it. They know it's gonna be good. It might be slightly different than what it was the year before because there are differences in raspberry crops and all that kind of stuff. But like Um You know, they're more confident to spend that money and then and then people are buying a lot of core range. Like right now, Core Range for us is probably doing the best it's ever done. I and it it's that that's a good thing.

But it just makes us kind of have to look back at okay, well how many limited releases can you put out? And we had always really tried in this kind of you know, that thing where we were trying to get the business up to a point where we had um, you know, enough people in the mix and doing these certain roles. Our goal was always to try and drive the core range to a certain extent so that was people's in and then have

select limited releases that we're putting marketing efforts behind and then have the small batch and kind of like venue only, really fun stuff that you can only get on Kegan at the venue. Um we never really quite got there with the market conditions. So we're we've always been trying to get there. And again with this LDC scenario that that kind of puts us into a um a a position where we we actually will be able to achieve

Uh which has always been a goal. We've always wanted to do it. It's just we've we've been kind of for some reason or another uh held back from actually achieving. And that's what I have to ask again, you know, how much of that problem with consumers changing and uh, you know, is the natural business cycle, or particularly in a in an emerging industry, you know, that where you you're going through that early adoption sort of early maturity phase.

um that Kraft Beer has gone through. Um and how much is is it COVID or did COVID just amplify and expedite some of those change that we're always gonna see that um you know I uh sort of look at the move back towards a core range and you know not that I'm particularly prescient but you know I I found myself three or four years ago because I get sent so much beer

to try that I just wanted to have beers that were the same twice in a row and that if I found a beer that I liked knowing there was a comfort, there was a security and there was a pleasure in being able to pick that beer up. And having that experience again, which for a long time craft beer was almost built on, you know, every beer is a new journey.

Yeah, I have I have a couple of theories. Um You know, to Andrew's point before, I personally have uh like you, Matt, have have sort of gone back to the the beers that that are a little bit more reliable. Uh you know, if someone is, you know, in New Jersey or in Sydney making, you know, their version of an authentic German lager,

they just generally don't live up t to what my memories are of an actual genuine German lager. So You know, I love supporting local and I love all that local stands for, but every now and then you just I just crave the real thing and you know, whether it's my emotions and my psychology or the actual liquid in the can. I find that to be a better experience.

And you know, and and people are changing things the world is changing. Um personally here in New Jersey, marijuana became legal. And I find, personally and with the people I hang out with, if you're hanging out and you are imbibing You don't want these wild and wacky beers. You just want something that is not going to challenge your palate. And the general consumer, you know, of the of the younger generation isn't consuming alcohol at the level that our generation is.

So, you know, we're dealing with a lot of factors of you know a market potentially aging out. uh other ways to spend your money on recreational activities and and taste just having experienced all these wacky wild things, you know, potentially coming back into just well made you know, good representations of of something authentic. Yeah, I think to and I'm I'm sure I mean, anyone who's spoken with me f uh in conversations like these knows that I I tend to go off on this um

Bohemianism versus standardization kind of curve. But I think that um you know when crap craft explodes. You know. uh whatever, nine years ago kind of thing, where kind of it's kind of starting to move up the the curve. And basically, um, you know, everybody's getting uh there's the economy's good, everyone has disposable income, they're trying all these new beers, the market gets saturated.

Then you reach the top of the curve and everyone's starting to look at and that's Bohemianism, right? Like everyone wants to go to local and stuff like that. But standardization always kind of comes back. And to Chris's point, like I think we're kind of starting to look

back at that. And I think you can see this curve i in the in in America. It's happened a few times already. Uh I always use dogfish as an ex as an example. They kinda came in a bit late in the late nineties. uh in America, but they held on and then they people yeah, during the correction people switched back

to international beers. Like um I I remember having this conversation with my brother in the late nineties, early two thousands. He's like, man, everyone's just drinking like, you know, Heineken. Like everyone's just moving back to that. So like everyone kinda had this move back to basically beers that they know um you know are are good quality, you know, all that kind of stuff, and then it'll and breweries won't Um

Um like craft breweries will still be there, but it really is gonna be I think for the next few years it could very well be that we're actually gonna be looking at those core range products and the standardized products that people know Um and then their disposable income will go to some limited releases, but for the brands that they know produce the good limited releases.

And that's the standardization I'm talking about. I think craft beer is always here to stay. But then, you know, we're gonna go down into that and then eventually in however many years, it might be five, another five years, I don't know. um craft beer will start to go back off again and we'll have another wave of innovation and probably new breweries coming to the market and all that kind of stuff. So I think um I think we might actually be looking at

you know, a scenario where there will be some consolidation. Oh there's gotta be some consolidation. But but isn't that just fashion? Uh just just to go back on that sort of pendulum of styles, isn't that fashion, you know This year wider bottom bootlegs are in and uh if if if a slightly wider, you know, bottom deer trousers is big, you know, it bigger. And and then next thing people are wearing ridiculous bell bottoms.

And then the movement then goes, you know, remember how cool stove pipes were? I'm gonna sort of have you know, and then suddenly you get these ultra skinny jeans and At the end of the day everyone's wearing pants, but the pants that they're wearing, you know, re r reflect the fashions. Hopefully it would be uh you know, everyone's still wearing pants, but it'll just be what the industry looks like.

I think that um you know, I always you know, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, um, but you know, I remember uh in university I had I don't know I don't know if it was an economics class or something, but I was just like, you know, you're looking at market trends and all this other kind of stuff, and I was just like, in good times, people drink beer and in bad times people drink more beer. So I think you know, uh beer beer's always gonna be around. Um I think it will uh and I think

I think it's gonna take there's a lot of innovation that are s is still to come in beer. I think um it you know, it might the face of it might change a little bit, but I think beer has a role to play um for, you know centuries or, you know, millennia to come because it really is, in my opinion, beer is still a common denominator um for everyone. So, you know, it's still it's still a it's the drink that rich people, poor people

um, whatever. You know, at people from all different types of, you know, backgrounds in the world can come together and um and share, whether it be alcoholic or non alcoholic, but you know, you you you actually you you can ha share a beer together um and it kinda brings everyone together and I I think there's something that is enduring in that and I think that will always kinda be will always be with us. Even even during trends of people

drinking less or or that sort of thing. And you see that with peop people are drinking less now, but non alcoholic beer i is on the rise. Um, so to me that says people still want to have a beer. Um they they might just not want to have any alcohol in it. So there's there's something that really Well I'm I'm not convinced I I'm not convinced that g uh alcohol free beer is on the rise

uh the to to the extent that everyone's talking about. It's easy to have thousand percent growth off of a zero base. Yeah true. Yeah and and then there is so much hype and there it w I I really want to see where the dust settles Um before

An interesting one to me. I d I'll I I I very rarely see a second media release from them. You always see the first. But so I I I I don't know what that what what that means. But just on on that question that beer will always be there. Um You know, I I I guess we're three white dudes.

talking about beer. That that is our you know that that that is our space, but as um You know, I I in in in my life I don't recall conversations around inclusivity and gender and, you know, um you know, all all of it

topics that are now um up for debate. And I I I I get the feeling that we're going through a period of social change as dramatic as I read about the sixties. I wasn't old enough to remember that, but it's one of those things that Um where we are seeing change and I do wonder how relevant beer is

in in you know, in in in the new emerging world, um if if it is just a province of of white dudes. Fair enough, yeah. Interestingly enough, I live in South Orange, New Jersey now. I moved out of Sydney in in June of twenty nineteen.

um still day to day involved in this business, just working nights and and um making it work. But where I live in my town is, you know, a fairly even split. If you went to the to high school you'd see Um You know, an e equal representation of of black kids and white kids with a a healthy proportion of of Asians and Hispanics and it's very diverse.

If you go one town to the east you're in Norwich, New Jersey, where you w would find an almost entirely black population, um with with healthy communities of of Mexicans and and other immigrants from Central South America. And if you go one town to my west, you are in a place that's almost ninety five percent white with a few uh you know w folks from you know, uh basically on um corporate

uh secundments, so, you know, they're they're upper way upper class, you know, doing it well. So it's an it's an interesting dynamic to look at, you know, what's to my east and what's to my west and I I have seen a f you know a a flurry of of uh you know black owned businesses, female owned, um, you know, you know, setting their shingle out there and and getting a a pretty good reception. So I think the market

If you just focus on what the consumer wants, you will react to what you know. But if you take a different approach and and and do open your mind up to what you know, what could be the growth, there there is opportunity. So as I said, you know, the you know, the younger generation is not uh consuming alcohol to the to the level that, you know, some of us older folks are. Uh, but there are other, you know, pockets of the population that that haven't experienced craft beer.

And, you know, who's to say if it's, you know, done authentically and marketed well, it couldn't work very well there. And with these dramatic changes have taken place both, you know, through COVID But but taking out the COVID, but you you sort of look at the market dynamics that are changing rapidly and, you know, the the social conversations that are uh taking place that are impacting, you know, the consumer um decisions.

To to some extent they were things that were going to happen regardless, you know, and w eight years ago was batch Equipped, what was the business that Batch started as equipped to handle those things? I would have thought as a small business. once you get to that scale, you're probably at a good size to handle rapidly changing um environments much better than a much bigger business would. Or or does growth give you, you know, a little bit of resilience?

That's an interesting one. I mean, Andrew mentioned before our ability to pivot into cans very quickly. Uh you know, we ha we have our own equipment. We weren't relying on contract canners, so you know when the market shifted to to package that was

an easy adjustment for us. Not so much for a Rockstar packing team to, you know, have to deal with the running that machine all day, but as a business we could adjust Uh I think there is an element of once you are dealing and heavily relying on the majors for your volume and your growth. Uh the majors don't move very fast, so it doesn't matter if you move fast or not, if you're moving faster than they are, you're not gonna get the business anyway. So

Uh it just depends on where your market is. If you're doing an exceptional job of direct to consumer and you pivot and they pivot with you, great. If you rely on traditional distribution channels kinda have to move in lockstep with them and you're hamstrung to what they will let you have and and what what they can do with you. Yeah, and the other thing is also, you know, we we we could pivot quickly, but I mentioned that earlier but

we're pivoting off of like a hunch most of the time. Whereas like, you know, bigger businesses um have market data, market research. Like most of this is just like, okay, this is we Th historically this is what's happened. Okay, maybe we should move on this. Or um, you know, we got some good feedback. Let's try and maximize um a bigger uh a a a more volume or ha a bigger volume of a certain beer or something like that.

And to Chris's point, not everyone's always pivoted with us on this. You know? Like we've done we've done stuff where oh man, this is this is gonna be great. I'm I'm trying to think of what's an example. Well, Saisons are a great example. um and and uh say IP Saison IPAs and um we d or we did something. Um

And, you know, I I remember being really excited about it, being, oh, this is gonna be awesome and it's just no one just it just yeah. But but that that that that says on brewers brewers love says ons. Yeah, brewers love pilsners. But you can't sell them. And and yet I don't know a single brewer I I I I've never taken a poll of any brewers who have said, gee, I love making hazies.

And y and yet that's where the the the market's at. But that's the risk when you're in a in an echo chamber um with talking to Um, you know, some beer nerds that came in and really liked it and the brewers like it and you like it and you're like, Well certainly like well, you know, we've put out some of these beers, other beers, whatever, that everyone's everyone's loved. So this has gotta work, you know? No.

Not not always the case. solace when I'm uh sort of saying something different to everybody else. I sort of think, well, when you agree with everybody, you're not right either. So, you know, if I'm gonna be wrong, I'd I'd I'd much rather be wrong saying what I think. Yeah. I mean even things like, you know, how quickly the market changed and how we went from you know, I think every brewery that I f saw in the f you know

when when breweries were opening six, seven, eight years ago, they all opened with their planned core range. These are the beers we want to make, these are the beers we want to sell. And I remember going back, you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years when the first

craft beer importers came in and you know they w they were the ones who were picking up the phone complaining about consumers never wanting to buy the same beer twice. So they would sign a contract with a brewery, they would get it in and the first you know, stone uh you know, batch of stone beers or the first batch of brewdog beers back in the day would s and they would sell out. But then they would get the second container in

And they would just sit because nobody wanted the same beer twice. And they were the first people to say, Hey, you know y we need a core range. Um and it's almost where we saw that become craft breweries is there were so many craft breweries so many breweries were trying to make a name for themselves as they launched or as they tried to bring attention back, did that. And that's where the market

seem to have pivoted you know swung to just one off beers. Um and you know, I I I still don't know how the economics of one off beers work for anybody. They don't, really. inexorbitant price. Hm. They're expensive to do. They do if you're at that very pointy end of of the pyramid. So again, my analogy is that, you know, at the very top of the pyramid you've got people who are heavily dedicated, but they are a small population. You get down to the bottom.

They could take it or leave it, but there's a lot of them. And and then there's a spectrum in between. Uh I mean Topher at Wildflower does an exceptional job, but he's basically got his beers practically I don't know what percentage, but there's a heavy percentage that are subscribed and whatever he makes people buy. And they're always different and it's inherent in in the product.

But can he scale? I mean I'm not trying to Does he want to scale? And and and and that's Yeah, going back to the first question I was asking, you know, is there a point at which you can do what you genuinely love? it's sustainable for you as a person, but then also the business is sustainable. We have ebbed and flowed on the the degree to which we need core and the degree to which we need creativity.

Creativity keeps people interested, keeps your your marketing team energized, your brewers energized. Uh, you know, I've seen revolving doors at certain breweries that only make one or two or three products. You know, the brewers come in, they spend, you know, six months, they learn to trade, and then they quit and move on because there's a million other opportunities for them to get a job.

But so if you want to build a sustainable, reliable business with people who are going to grow with you, uh you know a lot of those brewers right now want the you know, to get their hands dirty and be creative and have that creative outlet. So I I think where we've landed now is is a healthy internal debate around, you know, which end of the pendulum we need to be on and, you know, having that push and pull means it

you know, i that we get a little bit of both and, you know, the pendulum will swing back and forth. I mean, my my vision for the last number of years has been to make Australian beers with Australian raw materials in the most sustainable, you know, respectful way we possibly can. You know, we rely on the agriculture to tell us what is going to deliver and then we as brewers adapt to that.

as opposed to, you know, shopping around the world and importing and and burning fuels to get the raw materials to make an authentic version of something that is inherently not authentic because that's what, you know, the the That beer belongs to Belgians, not to you in Sydney. I mean I tried to instill in our brewers an an idea of using what's available And and being creative and expressing yourself as opposed to to to making what the market expects of you.

But at the same time we also are heavily focused on core right now and and and I have that debate myself. Do do I go out and buy, you know, the thing made by the local brewer who's trying to be it sustainable or do I go out and buy the loginitas little something because it's freaking great. And, you know, I have that debate myself and we have that debate within the company.

And and that's where hearing you talk about local ingredients for an Australian audience and you know that are relevant, the non brewery owning romantic in me, um, that resonates, you know, w with with my heart as a beer lover. But then I... rationalist goes, Well, do consumers care about that? And I can only apply that to my own you know, my own little business that has so many parallels to brewing, is that I wanted to

do industry news, you know, my way and ask the questions that I wanted to ask. Not the you know, not write for the people who are paying for advertising. I wanted to write for the readers who want who had similar questions. And uh, you know, th th there are days that I wake up feeling I've done something that's really important and it just doesn't feel valued because, you know,

uh i i in in a way that people actually pay for. You know, they they might sort of uh pay lip service to, but will they ever actually pay for something that they, uh, you know, on one level intellectually value, but when it comes to putting their hand in their pocket. Well well let me just state for the record, for all the millions of beer consumers listening to this podcast I want you to hit our socials up and tell us what you want from us.

Actually th that's that that's an interesting place to take the the the the conversation because you did Uh you know, y you did the equity crowdfunding eighteen months ago and you know, apart from the the the m the the money, uh the the the the capital that you raise that is important for any business to to to grow and scale

one of the hopes was that you build a community, um, you know, who feel that they have an a an investment in the business and would feed back to you. You know, has that has that worked out? Have you had an army of mm batches to uh to to to you know champion the brand. We did an analysis of of the postcodes of people who bought into our company and you know, they are remarkably close to the brewery. It's very hyper concentrated around you know the Marrickville area.

Our data that we capture for people walking through the door at the tasting room is not very good in terms of the uptake of. uh investors coming in to, you know, get the value out of their shares through discounts and and you know, r realizing a dividend that way. Where we do have good data is on the online sales and no. Our investor population, uh there are a number of them who are very, very habitual buyers and very involved in the in the community, very loyal.

Uh and the vast majority don't even open our emails. I mean Andrew can speak to the to the open rates and the participation rates, but they they would not make us proud, I guess, is the way. Yeah, I think I think I think when we did this we thought we were gonna have a lot more um

you and your participation on on that front. Um I I've got no I have no uh reason f for why we haven't or do people just invest and they're kind of like, yep, they're just happy to kind of say they own part of a brewery? Um or have we not engaged them properly? Um I'm not sure. We we could definitely, you know, take some blame for for not engaging them. the way they want to be engaged with or what have you. But when we do ask for input we basically get radio silence so that

You know, it's like do we invest our time in making people money or do we invest our time in telling people what we're going to do? Mm-hmm. And then the pendulum usually swings to let's just get on with doing our business and people ask questions, let's jump on it. But if they don't then Yeah. super hyper engaged uh audience

Um, you know, we ran some like quick numbers off of that. It was just it would have been gr like absolutely awesome. Like everyone buys a four pack, you know, a week or a case a month or s you know, whatever it is. Um and that's that's a fantastic result for um for the business, which means we can continue to engage everyone and it kind of takes you out of that.

that um the day to day grind of like, you know, trying to sell wholesale, but it kind of you know, there's a there's a lot of a lot of aspects that we were like, okay, this is this is gonna be awesome, like we're gonna see This super engaged audience and they're gonna spend money with us um and everyone's gonna get their discounts and there's value for them and

et cetera, et cetera. But um yeah, it just hasn't uh panned out that way. And I'd imagine that's probably what m a lot a lot of other people are experiencing. I maybe maybe I hope I'm wrong. Like hopefully other crowdfunders and I'm not saying anything bad about the people who have invested in us. Yeah.

the so some of it's our fault as well, but you know, I imagine there are s gonna be some sa similar challenges other breweries have would have had in crowdfunding as well. Um thinking that they they're gonna have a more engaged audience than they potentially have ended up having. Who knows?

And then and then the flip side of that is if you have a hyper engaged audience then you're putting on staff just to manage them. Which which again was one of the things I was gonna say is that it's I I think it's one of the things that people don't consider when they crowdfund is

that there is a cost to servicing those people who are coming on to deliver on the promises that are, you know, overtly or implicitly made um during the equity crowdfunding. Yeah. And I think for us You know, I think when it was just uh batch and small batch that was a little bit easier for us to manage, but then, you know, um acquiring bucket boys and taking over uh

you know, uh the how they're doing things and how they communicate and all that stuff is at added a level of complication with a team that was already stretched. Um, especially from a marketing point of view. Um, so yeah, it adds, you know, it it adds complication. Um, which is uh which is again where we're where we're at now with Local Drinks Collective, we have a full you know, we have a a a well a a well staffed marketing team that can handle multiple brands and E DMs and um social posts and

paid advertising and all that kind of stuff which is um which is f which is great. Um well we didn't have that before it was me and one other guy doing it and um trying to keep up with

you know, making sure we're gonna post something and that that thing's also available like online and you know, did the guys put it on the shelves? Did you you know there's just a whole there's a whole raft of things that come with it that can easily and uh one little thing can fall over and that's the whole thing's done.

Yeah, I mean again I I I can't hold myself out as a, you know, cross section of the community, but you know, I've I've bought into a lot of crowdfundings just for to to more to observe and uh understand so I can actually see, you know

the communications that come out and compare different businesses and, you know, overwhelmingly, um, you know, the the communication seems to be here's our latest beer. Um and not a lot about the the the the business and how it's travelling and business updates and hey, you know, you are an owner of this business, here here here's how it's going and uh in in the case of batch, you know, I don't know how reasonable it is that

Yeah, businesses need to run, but you know, hearing about the local drinks collective and I I've got a I think one share in batch, so a a very small amount, but you know, quite often I heard of um uh things uh to do with the company as a journalist, not as a shareholder. Um And, you know, I wonder what that w when you spread that out across the whole share ownership, um, whether people end up feeling that they're part of a business when they're not consulted on, um, or even, you know.

superficially consulted on you know major direction changes or insights. Some of these things end up getting um and again it's you know back to are the resources that we have and trying to manage um a lot of different stakeholders. You know, in the case of um things like Local Drinks Collective or um even Bucket Boys, like we um we are trying to not to keep it Like it's kinda you have this d dilemma of whether you go and tell the shareholders and you've got seven hundred shareholders.

But you're trying to keep it under wraps in the market. And unfortunately one of which is a journalist. Yeah. Unfortunately Yeah. So unfortunately for us that there there is very much a dilemma that And and you in particular, Matt, like we we were aware of that, so we're kind of like we have to run this gauntlet of

Um, not telling everybody, but telling everybody write it all at the same time when the media and then and then the media goes out because we kinda have to you know, you don't want it to leak out into market and then then then there's n really no announcement. So for us that's always been actually been a bit of a tough One to handle.

Um and has left some people um you know, such as yourself a little bit um put out from time to time. And we're not doing that intentionally. Um like we're not doing it to try and keep people out of the loop as sometimes we just said we we need to hold off on this communication and wait.

But in terms of business updates for us, yeah, I think for For us, that's always just been a tough one because you're constantly like Chris and I are in the business day to day, making changes, trying to keep everything

going, especially during one of the toughest years we've had, and kind of sitting there saying, Well, what do people actually wanna know? And and and to Chris's point earlier, we've kinda gotten a lot of radio silence from people. Like we're kinda you know, like we'll get one person kinda com coming back and kinda saying, Oh, I'd like to see this, this and this or like okay

That's fine. Like we'll we're happy to talk to you about it or send it to you, but we don't we're not getting a sense that everybody wants to know, you know, baz statement updates or, you know, quarterly updates or an or anything like that. And for us it's been really tough because

you know, you're you're dealing with a huge amount of change from um Um, from lockdown to then Omicron to then buying a business to then integrating and integrating that business to then integrating into another business. So it's like Yeah it's It's y your kind of head explodes with like, What am I supposed to tell people? Other than that, this is big things happening.

As I said, I'm I'm asking these questions because they're things that I see and trying to understand and everyone comes at it very, very different ways. Yeah. For the same problems and you know, I I don't know that anyone completely nails it but Uh uh on that and I'm very conscious of the time. So there are two uh areas. One you clearly want to talk about the local drinks collective. Um, tell us about that and how that is going to

you know, uh make d solve some of those problems that you've experienced. I th I think one of the things that we haven't really talked about, which is relevant to this decision making, is um is just the the process of a business maturing. So, you know, we're in Sydney, we're in in Marrickville, uh the real estate around us is is growing. Costs are growing at a rate that that are just astonishing.

Um you know, you have inflation and and market conditions is also adding to the to the struggle of of any small business. Um, but our staff can't keep up with the growth of what's going on around them and our business, you know, in its current form, uh can't keep up with the needs of our staff. So we wanna keep people around, we wanna give them careers.

But you know, some of our guys stand there and you know work the canning machine for you know eight hours a day and and they don't see opportunity. And we can't promise anything. We're doing our damnedest to deliver it. I mean, I've always said to our team, like, I I want the highest paid brewing staff in the country. I want I want ridiculously well paid brewers.

But that has to balance with what they put in and what that's valued in the marketplace. And of unfortunately, given the sheer you know, number of breweries and and the way the business has gone, um the margins don't support a person wh who wants a professional career and, you know, a decent lifestyle in Sydney.

So they we've had a number of people flee to further reaching suburbs looking for better lifestyles and cheaper costs of living. And then we end up starting over with a new staff and you know re retraining and retooling and figuring out

you know, how to how to get them integrated into the culture and moving forward and uh and we just keep, you know, hitting roadblocks. So You know, one of one of the key things for us with the Local Drinks Collective is is being able to access a pool of talent that um you know, that's bigger than than what our business has and you know, enabling people to to have careers. I mean, you know our partners at at at Wayward have put in um

uh a share scheme. So employees are are earning and and and owning into the company that they work for. We'll be doing that with the Local Drinks Collective as well, so all of our staff will have access to to ownership. uh you know we've you know through some of the synergies we've already realized we've been able to give uh you know some people new opportunities in different parts of the business and and you know career potential. Um

But we also struggle with with the staff shortages and and the expectations of staff that every business is struggling with. I mean people have high expectations. They are ambitious, they want more, and sometimes what their job allows, maybe not what they personally can contribute, but what their job allows and what the market allows.

isn't what they want. So, you know, the the the most motivated, smartest, best, you know, functioning salesman or brewer or or marketing or or bar or beer server You know, if if if the mar if the margin on a on pouring a beer is is X, we can't pay the person two X. We just can't.

And they might be worth five X, but it doesn't matter because the margin is the margin. That's a challenge uh again, same challenge that, you know, my little business has, um w which is why I find these conversations fascinating. So but T talk us through the um what is the the the local beer collective because trying to get my head around it, it sounds like a brewery owned distributor as opposed to a you know the the third party distributor model.

Th that's exactly right. So we have come together uh with our partners at Wayward to build a distribution company. We've moved our common functions that each of our breweries were were operating.

into that new business so that and what are those common functions?'Cause i is is it brewing, for example? Is it it's it's not brewing, it's it's the You know, it's it's the beer delivery, it's the beer sales. If you if you're a pub owner or a bottle shop owner, you are getting bombarded by six hundred rep.

Now you have one rep covering two brands and s or uh and ideally four or five. So that's one phone call for the opportunity to buy five different, you know, brands of beer as opposed to getting hit up by five reps who suck up, you know. Thirty minutes or ten minutes each. And we employ the one rep collectively instead of two reps collectively. And eventually you know, four reps collectively.

Yeah, so we we hope we're delivering some efficiency to the market, which they will then in turn reward us for by you know, by participating in what we're offering. I I I guess in terms of um in in terms of that I get it when there are two brands and you know, you and Way would have very little overlap in your core range or you know for for want of a better word, core range. Go back to hear the discussion on core range. Um

But, you know, when Pete announced it, you know, it sounded like the the the hope or the intention was to have three, four, five breweries form part of that and you know, potentially in in in in other states. And that's where a as an observer I I I see the challenge coming on because one of the gripes I hear often from breweries that want to see growth and not just distribution is, you know, a distributor um takes the lowing lowest hanging fruit and if they've got three pale ailes

uh the one that sells is the one that they push because why try and talk a customer out of the one that they want by trying to sell them the other two? And that's where you get, you know you don't get brands built and you don't get market growth, you just get sales um that you end up still doing the work. And I'm not sure what it is about the the model that you've proposed that gets around some of those problems.

With that, uh, there's i por a portfolio management, portfolio strategy is essential. That's what we've kind of from day one in these conversations, we've said that's really that's key. to making this successful. Um, you know, if we get a Queensland or in a Victoria brewery, um l uh let's just say uh they've got their pale ale let's just pale ale pale ale as an example. their pale ale will be the lead um in those states.

Um You know, here you know, Wayward's volume is the lead on their pale ale and like but we but our portfolios actually kind of fit together um quite nicely so we we're not really overlapping. Um but you know we you have to make sure that um the you have uh national priorities um for like the national brands.

um that we're gonna you wanna make sure you see in every single store versus um state based priorities um and drive periods and marketing focuses. Um and I think these are the things that um Kind of going into this, uh, you know, I I uh uh I've dealt with this in in my in my past job um and I've seen it work. Um, obviously with brands all under one ownership, but um but still you s you still have um

you know, people who are passionate about those state based brands that they wanna see them they wanna see them grow and all that kind of stuff. So I think it it's gonna be an interesting challenge for us, but um you know, if if everybody is in is in it together Um which is the the idea with this. is that you um you sit there and say like, Okay, Victoria brand, you know, you you are the pale ale, we're gonna help you drive that pale ale in Victoria and yeah, you might s have some distribution in

New South Wales and Queensland, but the real drive because we don't want to tell someone you can't have that beer, but the real drive's gonna be for, you know, the local pale ale and and that sort of thing. So th those are things that everyone kinda has to come in and and understand.

Um and it's and out of that you may end up getting a brand that does emerge as a national brand and that's okay. When that happens you s you you you you adjust and you kind of and you deal with that with that as it comes. But we're all if if if that brand's winning in this scenario, we're all winning. And I and I think that's that's the key point to your analogy, Matt, is where you have a distributor who's representing separate entities

uh that are you know completely uh ha have no uh common economics shared, yes, you get a a you know, fighting match over who gets the most, you know, uh focus by the distributor. In this case we both give up something of ourselves to gain something of the other brands. And if batch beers don't grow at all, uh batch shareholders still will grow. If wayward beers grow. If you have that resolution to the distributor model and if one brewery gets a national brand, everyone benefits

that that's from my other analogy and whether it's a straw man or or not, I don't know. But I I I think I've um said to you both off mic the you know, th the the four young people that come together in a rock band going, We're about creating music

You know, we're w we're we're not in the in this for the business, we're in it for the music. And then suddenly the uh lead guitarist writes Hotel California and uh after eighteen months of royalty checks going to the drummer, um, he starts thinking, Well, geez

You know, I could pay anybody uh to to to be the drummer. Why am I paying twenty five percent? You know, he didn't write the song. And that's just one of those, you know, challenges that success. Sometimes success is the biggest challenge that people can face. So there there's a couple of things to that. One is, you know, I love the analogy. Um it's it's it's bang on. Uh you know, the difference here is that we have

We didn't come together in our garage as a bunch of, you know, immature people with with no experience. We're coming together with a pool of of resources and a pool of experiences with, you know, a deliberate intention. And while we do talk about beer culture and, you know, giving people, you know, a five minute vacation in every can.

uh w money is at the heart of what we're doing. And and I love the beer industry for that reason. You have your creative outlet, but you have your economic foundation. And we're all coming to this as professionals and and hopefully uh we can behave better than a bunch of rock stars like that. But but we we all know that when we come in, we're giving something up.

To achieve some diversity, it's you know, it's like it's like the the superannuation industry. You're pooling resources, you're diversifying, you lower your downside. But at the same time you have opportunity to to grow. Yeah, I mean I think uh yeah, exactly. Like we we came in with um, you know, fresh off the bat of acquiring some venues.

Um there's a slightly you know, we diversified our business model, which was um different to Wayward, who's driving more like and we had and I always put my hand up and say we I f I feel like I've personally failed at in at wholesale um but where they have really succeeded in wholesale

So we can sit there and say, all right, well let's put this together. We can offer more retail sales um and venues. You guys offer um significant growth uh for the whole business in in wholesale and we're all achieving. Um, you know, ideally, you know, the next brewery is able to help um

you know, bring something um that adds value to this to what we've created now in this in this first iteration of local drinks collective that will add value in some way, shape, or form as well. There's many, many ways that that can

Right. Ideally everyone's kinda coming to the table bringing bringing something that they're that can they can they can offer that's a little bit different. A and as we go forward, who knows? I I I don't know how that's gonna play out because once you get the third, fourth, fifth brewery, I mean Can we be? Um or what different aspects can they bring, but who knows? We'll we'll we're going on that journey now, so we'll figure that out

Just very conscious of time and it's been a great chat and uh it's certainly one that I would uh love to have continued over a number of beers. But I will ask the uh the the the the classic, you know, nearly ten years into Batch's journey. If you could go back and restart the the whole journey, knowing what you know now and having had the uh the the wealth of experiences and learnings you've had, how different would batch look?

today, i i if you had that privilege? What would you have done differently and uh how would batch look now? I don't know how much we could do differently because, you know, we use the resources that we had and our own personal tolerances uh for for dilution. So when we started, as I mentioned, I think we we worked off about a half million dollar budget. Uh we got a hundred grand from from some key investors early on and then Andrew and I each contributed two hundred.

From then we didn't take on another dollar until crowdfunding. We've seen peers around us consistently sell pieces and pieces and pieces until what they're left with is is almost nothing or or very little. And they're basically just hanging on it as an employee.

Um, you know, we've we've managed to hold on to a a fair chunk of what we started with. And and I don't know that I would do that any differently. I mean, the easy thing not the easy thing,'cause it's very hard to raise money, but the the path to great volume is sell your business, sell a chunk of your business, get a big influx of capital, and build yourself a big ass brewery. And once you are big enough you can kind of swing your weight around and and get shelf space by sheer uh

you know, sheer momentum, um that's not what we set out to do. We would we would be running a very different business. It would not have given us the personal satisfaction at the last nine years, well, minus the last three, so maybe six or seven years.

uh has has granted us and and I wouldn't change that experience, even though we have landed in a spot where, you know, the the you know, beers aren't flying off the shelves and revenue is stable and not growing, which is what we've promised people.

Uh I don't know that I would I would trade that experience. Yeah, I don't think I would either. I've I've learned a lot. I mean you can always sit there and be like, Oh yeah, we would have you know, put a kitchen in or done or whatever but that's you know I think um the j the past nine years has been uh yeah, to echo it's been a awesome journey and I think

Um, you know, y we've learned a lot. You've learned a lot of h about how to run a business, a lot of hardship. There's been success, there's been hardship, there's been failure, there's been Um everything. Personally it's made me stronger and hopefully smarter and able to deal with

new and different things in ways that I wouldn't have been able to deal with if I hadn't done this. So I kinda you have to kinda go on that journey in order to get there. So Okay. I'll I'll f I'll ask a similar question in a different way. Um What would your advice be to somebody that still thinks yeah, how how awesome would it be to open a brewery?

You know, what advice would you give them apart from don't set up in Sydney's in the West? Yeah, good luck finding real estate you can afford unless you've got you know ten million dollars behind you. Which is what our you know, our peers have done around us and, you know, some of them are eating our lunch currently. But, you know, I think the you know, the authenticity will will uh be the ultimate, you know, staying power. Um and that's what I would I would tell people is stay authentic.

Uh stay connected to your to your consumer base. I mean, the more disconnected I've become, the less I can predict where things should be going and what what people want. If when I was pouring beers, it was very easy for me to make beers because I had immediate feedback. you know, being ten thousand miles away and um and getting all my feedback second hand with you know almost no ability to come and visit because of lockdowns and and border closures.

has is really taken a dent in my own, you know, personal ability to impact the business. Um But yeah, I mean d stay authentic. Don't be overly ambitious because that space is crowded. If you are a unicorn and you believe to be a unicorn, and I guess a lot of us do, and that's why we get into this, like go go for your life. But

I I kind of see it as a stratified market where if you've achieved a certain amount of shelf space and and you have some stability and some financial backing, you're probably riding this fairly well. And if you're small enough that you aren't reliant on wholesale distribution and you're probably riding this very well, but you're also You have to work fourteen hours a day.

Uh which I fucking loved personally, but um doesn't work as well when you've got a family and you need to be home for for bedtime and bathtime. Uh my my joking advice would be don't get married, don't have kids and and try not to drink too much. But the reality is you know, your your life is going to get in the way of your business plans and you know you have to be able to to to manage both. I would say don't do it. No, I'm kidding. Um

Just don't do it. Um go and drink at someone else's uh brew pub and enjoy enjoy it I'm I'm half joking when I say that. I think part of it part of it is um I love doing what I'm doing and for all the reasons I've just sang and learning and I've been in the beer industry for a little while. Um and I probably will be for a little while. longer. Um but, you know, sometimes for me I think, you know, I just want to be able to go

into a brew pub or to a bar and not think about work. Um and just enjoy it for what I used to enjoy it for. Um so it part of that c does get ruined for you a little bit when you do this. So that I would b definitely be saying like Uh if you if you really want to set up a brewery or a brew pub or something like that, um do it but no to all Christmas points. You're gonna be working hard and make sure you know what your ex you set your expectations.

To have a modest living? Do you wanna um try and build this thing up to be bigger than Ben Hur? You know, all that kind of stuff. Just know what you're going into it for and set your expectations around that. Um and know that you know, y it it it could fail. And I hope it doesn't, but it could you you have to be prepared for failure. Um in this. And that's that's what I'd be saying to someone. And and that's just a realist point of view.

You know, I'm I'm an eternal optimist, so I I'd like to think that everyone kind of like that op like that opens up a brew pub or something like that. Okay, this is great, man, you're doing what you want to do. But the real a the real aspect of it is to Chris's point is like if you if you if you haven't gone into it and you don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into, y you're gonna be working the fourteen hour days. And

At some point that might not be what you want to do. So you just gotta make sure you know what you're getting yourself into and what your expectations are. Gotta be working fourteen hour days and may not be enjoying your beer as much, which is why you got into it in the first place. Yeah, so that's it's definitely an industry of passion and when passion overwhelms economic you know, practicality you the industry just gets distorted and

Everybody has to work as hard as the person who's willing to work fourteen hours. I wouldn't discourage anyone from doing it, but I would I'd probably I'd just be telling'em like this is y you just gotta know what you're gonna get what you're getting into it for. And it you can't just If you know if all of a sudden one day you say, Oh, this is too hard for me, I can't do this anymore. It's not that easy.

Uh unless you set it up to be able to do that, but you can't just walk away from it. Um you know, you've got you have rent, you've got employees, you've got um, you know, consumers that are relying on you to for all this stuff. So you you have to y you know, you have to you have to be ready for that. Yeah, liquidation is an option, but it's it's gonna leave you hurting, that's for sure. Yeah.

Those answers uh justify, you know, the the the the whole podcast. They're almost a podcast in themselves. So I'll just ask you, would you both do it again? Um, I I've often thought that after a batch maybe I would start like a brew pub or something like that. So I think that's still um Like, you know, by the uh by the seaside somewhere. Like in a in a not too expensive suburb. I I always thought that would be awesome. So yeah, I probably am a glutton for punishment. So I probably would, yeah.

Uh Andrew Finnron and Chris Sidwath, thank you so much for this uh yeah, uh uh uh uh a really valuable conversation um about batch, uh another conversation about Batchers Journey and also just uh you know, look at the the the realities of being in the brewing industry. One one final closing comment, consumers, to the extent you guys are out there listening.

uh speak up, tell your brewers what you want and and know that every dollar you spend is a vote for who you want to be surviving, you know, the next couple of years. So you have a lot of power. Right. Thank you both. Cool. See ya. And that was Andrew Fineran and Chris Sidware, and I thanked them again for being willing to engage in that conversation.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the local drinks collective works for them and whether it solves the issues for them that many small breweries are currently facing. I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this episode. Even if it's one of those emails that begins as many do, don't quote me on this. I'd really love to hear your thoughts and what you're seeing out there in the industry.

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