This episode was recorded in January but its the perfect episode to listen to after a boozy St. Patricks day. This is our very first Craft Beer in Canada: Non - Alcohol Edition.
Mathieu Gagnon is one of two brewing brothers who previously owned an alcoholic brewery identified a gap in the quality non-alcoholic beer market and created Sober Carpenter, now available in all Canadian provinces and 28 US states.
Mathieu explains their arrested fermentation process that prevents beer from exceeding 0.5% alcohol while maintaining flavour integrity. Their beer is manufactured at Equals Brewing in London, Ontario with national distribution strategies focusing on major retailers. We talk everything from tariffs to distribution in this episode that will give you lots of insight into the the complicated but booming non alcohol beverage market.
Visit sobercarpenter.com to order any flavour with free delivery on two or more cases, or find select varieties at select grocery stores.
Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From far and wide.
We drink tonight with folksfrom all around.
Cheers, cheers, cheers.
Welcome to the Afternoon Pint.
I'm Mike Tobin.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
here and I'm Matthew Gagnon from Sober Carpenter.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Matthew Sober Carpenter.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, sober Carpenter yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'd really love to thank your team there for
sending us the care package.
At the beginning of the month,I announced that I was doing Dry
January.
This is being recorded onJanuary 27th, so I made it.
I didn't touch a drop of beeror anything, wine or anything
alcohol-related now for theentire month.
I also stayed away from HawkinsCheezies.
That was another commitmentthat I made.
(00:42):
I didn't touch those either.
I don't know if you know this,matthew, but the episode that
just came out with we had formerPremier Stephen McNeil on our
show and he actually had a sobercarpenter with us.
He was doing Dry January also,so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Very impressive.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
One of your beers with an ex-premier Excellent.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
So what do we have here?
So I'll mean, I'll start,because I mean mine's right up
here behind me, the one that I'mdrinking, that's the double IPA
, which is pretty tasty.
Yeah, hazy, exactly.
It's pretty tasty and I see youhave pictures of oranges and
creamsicles and stuff on thereand I can definitely get that on
(01:21):
there with that nice hint oforange, orange and it's.
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I like a hazy ipa, so it's good I'm drinking the what
uh black ipa right there yeah,yeah, so those were a couple of
our limited editions.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We uh, we we've launched in in the in the past.
Yeah, cool.
And what are you drinking?
I'm drinking, uh, session ipamyself.
I'm an IPA guy, so I drink theblack, the hazy.
I got a regular IPA and I gotthe Session IPA in my fridge.
(01:54):
That's what I drink Amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're all having IPAs .
We're all psychopaths, allright.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So Sober Carpenter.
How did it all begin?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So, sober Carpenter, how did it all begin?
It's myself and my brother, arethe, the owners, the founders.
We've actually been around thethe beverage industry for a
little while.
We were.
We had a brewery in Quebeccalled, you know, two Brothers
Two Brothers Brewery in thealcoholic space for a while.
You know two brothers twobrothers were in the alcoholic
(02:26):
space for a while Also do abrand on the alcoholics.
I think that's called Pop Shop.
We do the alcoholic version.
So we've been in that space fora while and you know same thing
, I think as many people.
You know we were drinking a lotof beer ourselves, personally,
and you know getting a bit older, slowing down in the senior
league where we play hockey, youknow just feeling that.
(02:47):
You know getting a bit older,slowing down in the senior
league where we play hockey, youknow just feeling that.
You know just getting.
You know you feel you get a bitolder.
So we decided you know we werein the beer business.
We decided, you know what couldwe do to improve the category?
Because we felt there was aneed and we were just, you know,
when we started the business,taking a look at the non-out
category.
It was, like you know, end of2017, 2018.
(03:08):
So really there wasn't much.
You know, the partakes of thisworld or athletic brewing were
just starting up.
We were seeing, like you know,there's an opportunity.
We should get involved.
There's some opportunitiesstarted talking with companies
like athletic brewing, brew dogor bravis out of the us to just
look at it from a maybe justdistribution portion, just
(03:31):
importing from the us some ofthe beers that were starting up
and that we saw that were verygood quality, like an athletic
brewing, which I talked to backin 2018, early 2018, during port
.
And you know, as we had thesediscussions and it was, you know
, not going the way we wanted orit was a bit too slow, we said,
hey, we know beer, I think wecould do a good product and we
(03:54):
decided to do it ourselves andwork on developing a brand and,
it's more importantly, workingon developing some recipes and
products that we thoughtCanadians could enjoy and have a
top-notch product in terms ofquality.
So we started the route oftalking to potential partners in
terms of distribution mostlyAmerican guys and then we
decided to go let's create ourown brand, own product, do it in
(04:18):
Canada, bottle it in Canada andthen try to sell as much as we
can in Canada and sell as muchas we can in the US.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What was your approach?
Did it start on a communitylevel, like Sober Carpenter?
Were you just selling it inyour hometown, or how did you
start selling it?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No, we actually right off the bat saw that there was
an opportunity at a nationallevel and that's sort of the
approach we took with retailershaving knowledge of.
You know, rather than going theroute of trying to sell to the
BCLDB and the AB&L and all thoseliquor boards that maybe the
beer guys are more traditionallyused to selling, we went and
(04:59):
saw national distributors andnational retailers and said
here's a product and we thinkthere's.
And said here's a product andwe think there's.
You know, it's a market that'sgoing to develop.
Look at, you know, on your shelfyou have Plastowler, you have
you know old, you know O'Doul's,you know like O'Doul's and
stuff like that.
You know like, who's bought anO'Doul's?
(05:20):
I've never seen anybody drinkit.
So we went and we we sort oftold retailers that, um, you
know we have an offering of anational product and that is is
we can distribute everywhere andbuild a national brand.
So rather than than trying toto go to the liquor boards and
sort of have a provincial orregional distribution, we right
(05:41):
away tried to develop nationalrelationship with retailers like
Sobeys and Metro and stuff likethat.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
That is kind of the advantage, eh, the advantage of
not the fact that there's noalcohol.
You can just go to anybodywho's willing to sell your
product, right?
So that's kind of the uniqueadvantage of anyone who's
getting into that non-alcoholicspace that still wants to sell a
product for people who stillwant to have a beer at the end
of the day, or however many youwant to have at the end of the
(06:14):
day and and you know, and stillbe able to drive home or
whatever, right, how do you?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
get alcohol out of beer.
Do you make the beer and thenremove the alcohol?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
yeah, it's actually like.
So there's a couple differentways to do it.
Um, and so there's the, the,the, let's say the, the european
way, which is a de-alc, right,you'll, you'll let's say, you
drink a heineken zero they'll do, uh, they'll actually ferment
it with beer and then they do aprocess where they de-alkalize
it.
You can de-alk with either aslow distillation, where you'll
(06:47):
burn the alcohol off, or you'lldo, let's say, a very small
filtering system.
The problem we found with thisprocess and that's why european
beers are, let's say, all blondeis they'll take out the flavor,
right, they'll take out.
When you take either with youburn off alcohol, you're going
to take off some of the flavor,or, if you filter it right,
(07:08):
you're going to take off some ofthe flavoring.
So what we do is we do a processcalled arrested fermentation.
So we're basically like doing arecipe with what we would do
for like a normal beer with abit less malt, because we don't
want to have like residualsugars and have like a sweet,
unfermented taste at the end,where you have like sort of a
(07:29):
heavy aftertaste because youhave unfermented sugars.
So we basically do everythingthe same way as you do a beer,
but then we don't allow it toferment super high.
We we we crash it before ithits 0.05.
So we basically bring thetemperature extremely cold in
(07:51):
the tank so the fermentationcan't continue, and then we
package it, ferment it so itcan't restart the fermentation.
So that's our process.
It's called the restedfermentation and it's a process
that most brewers will use.
You can also use anon-fermentable yeast that will
convert the sugars into alcohol.
(08:13):
Same thing.
We've experimented with that,but we find that really the best
result to have sort of productslike the black IPA or the hazy
IPA that will really have somenice hoppy flavors is a rest of
fermentation.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Are some beers harder to make than others?
They must be because, like this, this must be a challenging one
to make compared to maybe likea lighter lager style or
something else.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, definitely IPAs are more difficult.
Anything with dry hopping isgoing to be more difficult and a
lot of people think like, oh,it's non-alcoholic, should be,
you know, cheaper than alcoholbeer.
It's actually more difficultand more expensive, for example,
or IPA, because when you dryhop we can't dry hop with hot
liquid, so we need to put evenmore hops to extract that hop
(09:03):
flavor because it's you know,it's like seeping, seeping tea,
seeping hops.
If it's warm you're going toget a lot more flavor extracted
out of there.
When you're doing a dry hopwith cold liquid, it's a lot
tougher to extract thatflavoring.
So we have to pull it out a lotmore with anything Like if you
have more hops, more material ina brew, it's tougher to.
(09:25):
At cold temperature it'stougher to extract, tougher to
then, you know, centrifuge, getall the material out.
So those, those IPAs that wehave, especially the more like
our, our traditional West coastIPA and our, our hazy IPA, are
the most challenging beers to dofor sure.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's a.
That's a big thing I think thata lot of people think about.
Is they think I mean, everyoneknows that because there's
alcohol and things, taxes arehigher and all that stuff on
those, and so that's why peoplesometimes justify the fact that
you know the cost of beer.
But people often will say thatyou know why is my non-alcoholic
(10:05):
beer almost the same price asregular beer?
But yeah, I don't think theyrealize the, the, the craft is
still there, but also you haveto.
Yeah, like you said, there'ssome things.
It's easy to just let thingssit and ferment versus
controlling the process a lotmore along the way, which is why
(10:26):
you guys, you know, end uphaving to spend a little bit
more to kind of do the process.
I don't think people realizethat.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, oh, no for sure .
And the ingredient cost.
At the start there's not amajor difference.
Like I said, because we areusing basically a same recipe
and then you know, even somehops we need to use more hops.
And the process is we're stillfermenting the product.
We're just fermenting it at acontrolled temperature.
So instead of having a tankwhere you're going to let the
temperature rise up to 35, 40degrees Celsius and then just
(10:54):
have bubbling in it, just let itgo, we have to control it.
So the fermentation takes a bitlonger and it's something where
you also have to watch it a lotmore.
A normal beer you can, and onceall the sugars are gone, you're
good.
Like us, we have a very goodcontract packer.
We don't have our own plant.
We work with a company calledEquals Brewing, which is a great
(11:18):
partner, but there's a breweron site always checking the tank
because as soon as you can'tlet it go, because if it goes
over 0.5, 0.6, you're in trouble.
So you can't just say like,leave the tank and come back in
a week and and you know, call ita day, yeah, so yeah, it's a
challenging process.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
How much beer are you guys or how much non-alcohol
beer are you guys pumping out?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
now we're.
We're right now in about six,6,000, 6,500 accounts in North
America.
Amazing.
So we sell accounts in NorthAmerica.
Amazing, we sell in 28 statesacross in the 28 states in the
US.
We're available in all of allthe provinces in Canada.
We try to get as much out aspossible, but we're pretty proud
(12:03):
to have that many accounts.
It's just a question of peopledrinking as much as possible and
then we'll pump out as much aspossible.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Cool.
What are your concerns?
or are there concerns withwhat's going on of people
drinking as much as possible andthen we'll pump out as much as
possible?
Oh cool, yeah.
I mean, what are your concerns?
Or are there concerns withwhat's going on in America right
now with tariffs and trades?
And I mean there's a lot oftalk about things and and, and
you know, being able to exportto America might become a
challenge in the near future.
Do you guys?
Are you guys dealing with thathead on, or are you?
Are you even seeing any of thatin your world?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So far we've made sure we're addressing with our
customers.
I think we're very proud of thefact that we're a small
Canadian company and we'remaking a little dent on the US
market.
On CNNcom for their dry gen, wehad a little blurb at the end.
It's like with the leadedbrewing and Heineken zero.
(12:52):
Like it's pretty cool that youknow two little guys from you
know co-packing in London,ontario, or are on the CNN
website.
So we're we're very proud andwhat we're, what we're doing to
prepare sort of for it.
We, we don't want to startco-packing in the US.
That's sort of a you know offthe table resort.
So we're talking with ourpartners and saying, hey, if
(13:15):
this happens, how do we keep theproduct in Canada?
Like we're going to, we'regoing to, you know, we're going
to eat something.
How can our partners like I'drather buy four packs in London
and co-pack in London and buycans in Toronto, like, but if it
(13:35):
all goes to the US, nobody'sgoing to make money off of that
right?
So how can our suppliers helpout?
And we're going to eat most ofit.
So we're having thosediscussions but hopefully it
doesn't come to that, that thatwe need to uh, tighten our belt.
Hopefully, uh, you know, calmerheads prevail and and do the
supplies mostly for yourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
They mostly come from Canada or they come in from the
US, like to the hops and suchso hops?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
we?
We have some hops from.
Uh, we do use some Canadianhops.
We have some European hops.
We have some hops from the USas well.
Uh, most cans are manufacturedin Toronto.
Yeah, um, so so.
So cans are manufactured inToronto.
Uh, a lot of them.
The malts will come from canada.
Most of the malts will comefrom canada.
Some malts, some, some morespecialty malts, will be from
(14:16):
europe, but most of the maltsare actually canadian.
Um, and then all the co-packingis done in canada as well.
The only content that is us iswhen you're getting into, uh,
you know, some of the the WestCoast hops, you know, from
Washington, the Citra Simcoe.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I just opened the blonde here just because you
know I'm on my second one,because it's a hard Monday night
.
You know we're going into it.
So I mean, yeah, I can see thehere like two row dominantly.
Obviously everything's going tobe two row.
I assume that's Canadian tworow.
But yeah, you get your carapilskind of malt in there, which is
that's what gets that nicecaramel kind of flavor on it.
So you have traditionalHallertal and Zotz hops on there
(14:56):
.
So those must be the Europeanones that you're bringing in.
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to trya blonde beer with Zotz hops
because generally that's likefor a pilsner, like you know,
type of style, like atraditional European pilsner.
I just something about them.
Those noble hops are just yeahthey're great, definitely stand
(15:18):
out.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And and we tried to, uh, when we develop each beer,
we tried to really have adifferent you know hop profile
to them.
Like you know, our our sessionhas galaxy hops, or, or, or,
let's say, our original IPAs itwas really West coast IPAs.
It'll be all West coastAmerican hops.
So we tried to have differenthop profiles to all the beers so
that they really taste distinct.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Where's the name come from?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
the Sober Carpenter Everybody.
Yeah, it's a question, we get alot.
Somebody wrote to us and said,like you know, it's the original
Sober Carpenter is Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Somebody came up with that.
I thought it was a good, goodanswer we should use that that's
not true, because he turnedwater into wine.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That's what.
That's what he was drinking.
He wasn't.
He wasn't going to leave sober.
A couple things when we startedbrainstorming on the name
myself and my brother, you know,you go through these lists and
then you, you know you sort ofuh brainstorm, and then you, you
talk to your friends and yourwife about hey, what do you
think sticks?
And there's a couple of thingswe wanted to make sure we had.
One was we wanted to make surethat, you know, people knew that
we were a non-alcoholic product, right?
(16:19):
So, having the word sober inthere, we wanted not to shy away
from that fact and really haveit in the name and really
communicate that we're, we're anon-alcoholic brand.
You know we'll never do analcoholic product.
It will never be.
You know, a boozy carpenter.
(16:40):
You know we're sober carpenter.
That that said, that's all.
Yeah, yeah.
We wanted a name that is easyto pronounce in French and in
English.
You know, we want a name thatyou know because of that
regionality too, like we're veryproud that I think we can say
(17:00):
with the fact that we'reprobably the most you know one
of the really national brands,craft national brands in Canada,
because we're Quebec is sort ofits own thing, right.
Quebec is a difficult market.
You French obviously an issue,so we wanted to have a name that
stands out and is pronounced.
It is pronounceable in Englishand French.
(17:22):
So in Quebec, you know we're,we're the number two craft any
beer after all.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Sanchez from Boreal and so for a brand that's
manufactured in ontario.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
That that's pretty neat.
You know it's not la boquera,it's not uh, l'alchimiste, you
know it's sober carpenter.
So we wanted a name that youcan pronounce in english and
french, so that it's we cantruly build a national brand.
And the last thing was was aname that that's fun and and
funny.
So we thought, like you knowwhy, silver carpenter?
(17:54):
And the same reason like why?
Because it's it's funny, it'sfun, and that those are the
three, three things why we'renamed silver carpenter you said
you the blonde, we can get thathere, I guess, yeah, the
blonde's at sobeys uh, I knowit's a great blonde.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
There are standard IPAs at Sobeys as well.
I really like the red too.
Man, after trying the samplerpack, did you try the?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I know I gave you one out of the big.
I know there's a red.
I have a red down in the fridgedownstairs.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I was surprised how great that one was as well,
you're really nailing theflavors.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I'm interested to try it.
I saw that it's an Irish Red.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Irish Red yeah, with Windsor yeast.
Actually, I think the Red isour most decorated beer.
It's the one that's won themost awards for us.
It was actually in USA Todaynamed the best non-alcoholic red
in North America.
So, last year they had, you know, the best IPA, the best blonde,
(18:59):
and our red was named as thebest NA red in North America.
So we're very proud of thatfact and I think it's probably
our best beer.
Like awards, at leastcompetition judges feel that
it's the best.
That's the one that's won themost medals.
For us, cool.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, I don't think that was in Sobeys the red.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
The Sobeys.
Distribution in Atlantic Canadais challenging.
We've got to work on ourdistribution.
So, you know, some stores canorder but all the stores like
have what we call is it's like aflex listing, right, so a store
could order it that the productexists, but we have limited
representation in like AtlanticCanada.
(19:44):
Right, because to get in thestores we need we have we use
brokers.
We don't have our own employeeson the, we're not big enough,
you know.
Use brokers.
We don't have our own employeeson the on the, we're not big
enough, you know.
So we don't have our ownemployees going store to store.
We use brokers and what ourbroker in atlanta, canada, has a
has a couple bodies but notenough to cover, you know, the
whole territory and calling onit.
(20:05):
But we work every day on it.
They're working every day on it.
We're adding stores, addingflavors, um, and uh yeah.
So so just going increasing,but you know the best way to get
all of our flavors or tryanything is really the website
silvercarpentercom and on thereyou can order whatever flavors
you want.
You know, we have two, two casesfree delivery after that and we
(20:27):
we often have very good deals.
Uh, we just had, like last week, an ipa bundle, so you can just
buy you, you know, every IPAlike as a special package, so
that's the best way to do it.
Or else we also have Amazoncom.
That we sell.
Just to get one case freeshipping with your shampoo or
whatever else you're buying onAmazon is a good way to just try
(20:49):
.
You know, get one case insteadof buying two or three to get a
free shipping.
So but we're working ondistribution hard and trying to
get also some some food andrestaurant distribution in
Atlantic Canada.
So we're working hard on that.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, you know what, like I think Mike and I will,
just we can do, we can do somedistribution for you down here,
we'll work for beer, you justsend us.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
For you down here, we'll work for beer, you just
send us keep sending us carepackages and we'll spread the
word out here, but yeah, youknow well.
But but to find a point though,I mean, uh, even now, today, we
, we record our show at amicrobrewery or a pub, and
that's right.
So it's all mobile podcast gearwe have.
We go out and we're quite rightthere on the spot, um, and we
go to various pubs andmicrobreweries all across nova
scotia.
A real pain in the earthsometimes is if they don't have
(21:33):
an alcohol beer or if they havea really lousy one.
Right, because I, uh, I might,I often don't have a second, uh,
alcoholic beer when I go recordthese shows yeah, and you know
what we had.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
We had a good uh brand from pei here.
They made only two.
The beer was excellent.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
What brand is that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That's Upstreet.
They make alcoholic beer, butthey also make two of their
styles in non-alcoholic Upstreetthe brewery slash barbecue
place pulled out of here, Ithink you can still get it.
It's called Libra, I think youcan still get it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Libra's pretty popular here.
It's called Libra.
I think you can still get it.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It was pretty popular here, yeah, it was pretty
popular, but honestly I thoughtit was one of the better ones.
But honestly, I'm really reallyenjoying this blonde, and
blonde's not really a style Ienjoy that much.
But I think it's just becauseyou can taste the hops quite a
bit on it, which is good,because I that those two hops.
(22:32):
But um the um, it's amazing how, how far this non-alcoholic
beer has come, because I wasdefinitely one of those people
who, you know, pre-covid and allthat stuff was like you'll
never, you know, I'll neverdrink it because there isn't any
that are any good.
Um, but that's changingdrastically now.
(22:59):
Right, there's a big market forit and now I feel like I can go
out and I can grab six of themand you can drive home Cause he
can, you know, drink six beerwhile you're sitting there
talking to people and get inyour car and go home.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
A good point, though Now on a lot of these a lot of
these.
I don't think there's warningson yours, but there is warnings
If I had the Corona Zero Alcoholin the summer at the house and
they actually say right on, donot drink more than two.
I have no idea why it said thatand if they had any kind of
concern other than maybesomebody feeling it.
(23:30):
I don't know know.
Is there any concern if youhave consuming multiple of these
beers, like there would beconsuming regular beer?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
not aware.
No, not, not on our side.
I'm just trying to think forcorona.
The only thing I can think forcorona is they had they had
added like vitamin d in thereyeah they had vitamin d to sort
of make it like a special thingthat, like you know, summer and
then.
So maybe that was the reason tonot consume too much vitamin d
um, and they may have actuallyremoved that from their, their
(24:04):
beer, but I'm not, I'm not toosure, but I think that might be
the reason why they had to.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I think it was more along the lines that their beer
just tastes like garbage and youshouldn't drink.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It's a good hot tub.
Beer, buddy, it's a good hottub, I'm an easy guy.
I'm an easy drinker, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I tub beer buddy.
It's a good hot tub.
I'm an easy guy.
I'm an easy drinker I'm notinto.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I'm not uh pretty, I'll drink anything.
Uh pretty.
Well, I'll try it in it, soyeah.
So you guys are located inmontreal, right?
So yeah, our we're based out ofmontreal.
Uh, myself and my brother livein montreal, and then we uh work
with equals brewing out of, uh,london, ontario.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay, so our products are manufactured in london oh
so our products are manufacturedin London, oh so they're
actually manufactured in London.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Oh, okay, yep, yep, yep, everything is manufactured
in London, ontario, and then weship from there all over the
Canada, and then we ship themthere to Detroit and then from
Detroit all over the US.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Okay, so if someone went to Montreal they would not
be able to go to your brewerythen.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
No, no, nope, no, they would, uh, they, they, they
could come and knock on oursales office, and then we have
uh we have some beer, but, uh,they won't see big fermenters
and uh, uh, they won't see hugefermenters.
And we went that route as well,just because you know, uh,
there's, building a brewery isjust so, uh, it's, it's time.
(25:22):
Consuming takes a lot ofresources and I don't think, you
know, you can only be good atso many things.
You know you can be good atpacking stuff, you can be good
at developing recipes, you canbe good in sales and marketing,
you can be good in customerservice.
And we know our strength wasn'tto go knock on doors and talk
(25:44):
to banks or investors and try toget a couple millions to build
equipment.
We know our style is we're goodin marketing, we're good in
product development and we'regood at talking to retailers and
working with retailers customerservice.
So those are our strengths andthat's why we partnered with a
contract contract packer, um, todo that and uh, so you know
(26:06):
there's really two routes and wetook that route.
We think it's it was the bestoption for us.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Uh, at the time, yeah , oh, I mean, it definitely lets
you guys focus mostly on, likeyou know, the actual marketing
and developing recipes andthings like that, and just let
someone else brew it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, it makessense.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
It beats shoveling grains, that's for sure.
And brewing is a lot of fun,but it's certainly challenging,
right?
It's seven days a week, 24hours a day, it's nonstop.
So it's good to have.
You have to find the rightpartner and you gotta, you gotta
you gotta love it to do it forsure.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And then just like all the like, the brewing parts,
the fun part it's like the partis.
The other part is like thecleaning.
That's the part that I always Ialways hated about it is making
sure everything's clean,because beard, you know it can
get infected, not that it'llhurt you, it never, it'll never
hurt you but you know it tastesand smells pretty bad when it is
(27:09):
and uh, so you got to make sureyou're cleaning things
exceptionally, exceptionallywell, and now even more so for
you guys, because you guys arenot fermenting it all the way,
so the, you know pathogensaren't actually being cooked off
with the, the fermentationprocess.
So is that even a concern foryou guys when it comes to like,
like, if you had any situationslike that where you know batches
(27:30):
go off or anything like that,does it happen more often than
regular breweries?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think you know, working with equals we were.
We actually sort of like I'dsay we sort of both helped each
other out, because the uh uh onething we you have to do with
any beer in arrestedfermentation is pasteurization
right okay, you have topasteurize your beer.
Um, and that's a route.
(27:55):
So basically, you're killingeverything in can and there's.
You know, some people saypasteurization can oxidize the
beer.
But the reality is, if you havea low level of oxygen or any
low level oxygen in the productand you pasteurize it, what
you're going to do is you'regoing to one, you kill
(28:16):
everything in there so you can'thave any risk of contamination
or refermentation, but you'rebasically aging the product if
there there's any aging to doany oxidation right away.
So once you get, like our, ourbeer pasteurized, it will taste
the same thing day one as it'lltaste in two years.
It's not like an IPA withreally fresh hops where if it's
(28:40):
three months old, you're seeingthat the hops are losing their
flavor.
So fermentation does that.
The other thing that, becausewe're NA, what we had to deal
with in terms of retail is,let's say, the AB&L and LCBO
they all work with alcoholicproducts.
(29:00):
Let's say the ABNL and LCBOthey all work with alcoholic
products.
So it's not in their mandate toask for certain types of.
They don't ask for auditcertifications, for example.
So we've been.
We've sold product to Costco,we've sold product to Loblaws.
(29:21):
All these retailers havecertain standards of quality
that require high levelcertifications.
So because of that we've had toput in place with equals,
certain standards for cleaningtracking that might be above
what a regular brewery has to do.
That might be above what aregular brewery has to do,
(29:43):
because the standards of aCostco are higher than what the
LCDO will require in terms offacility certification.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Okay, yeah, and I mean, like, when I look at this,
on top of that, the caloriesand stuff like that are pretty
good too for people.
Anyone Like that's anotherfactor with this.
Without the alcohol thecalories tend to be much lower
too.
So that's another thing.
But what like is there?
Because I mean, it's anon-alcoholic product and you
(30:19):
know, sometimes with alcohol andwith hops like things tend to
last a little longer.
But is there a shelf life foryour like for the beers, because
there's non-alcoholic on there?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Sorry.
So, uh, yeah, there is a shelflife.
The shelf life varies dependingon the uh, depending on the uh
on the beer, yeah, um and then.
But what we do also is we dobench testing.
We keep samples of every youknow, every beer we're brewing.
We got a couple and we'll taste, we'll test them, uh, down the
line and to see if any, you know, if product is, is we need to,
(30:59):
uh, you know, send a note to thedistributors.
Maybe this lot number pull abit faster, or or you know that
that's fine.
We have our standard, standardlevels, but we usually have very
, very high level of turnover ona product because, as the
volume has grown, what we'vebeen able to do is so, rather
(31:19):
than doing it's a bit moreexpensive what we do, but I
think it helps with the productturnover.
So, when we brew an IPA let'ssay a regular IPA we'll brew it
and then we'll do part of the.
We'll brew it almost every weekor every two weeks, and every
week and every two weeks we do abit of 355 ml, we do a bit of
(31:41):
USA product and we do a bit ofCanada product 355 ml.
We do a bit of usa product andwe do a bit of canda product.
So rather than saying week one,we're doing all 355 ml and we
have 3 000 cases of 355.
We do a bit of everything andso it helps with the velocity um
and the turnover of the productawesome.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, that's great yeah what's in the future for
Sober Carpenter?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I think what we really want to work on and what
we want to focus is justensuring that that we keep
bringing new products to thetable and innovating.
You mentioned how the quality ofbeer has has increased, and
(32:26):
that is because there is a lotof competition and that's
positive for the consumerbecause it forces all the
companies like us to sort oftake a look at the product and
make sure that we're continuallyimproving it and bringing new
products to the table.
So that's one thing we want todo is continue those limited
series, series or limitededition products.
Bring those, bring some to themarket, um and uh, so that
(32:51):
that's a big uh, big focus ofours and in 2025 and uh, and I
think we want to make sure thatwe increase the distribution.
In terms of reaching, I thinkretail stores like the Sobeys
and the Loblaws of this worldare getting more product onto
(33:16):
the shelves and increasing theshelf space.
I think the next target reallyfor all the NA products is
restaurants and bars making surethat you know you have two or
three options of NA drinks onthe menus and they're printed on
the menus.
I think that at that level,probably we're one or two years
(33:39):
behind in terms of what's in therestaurants versus what's on
the store shelves.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I hope to see that too, I think it's just good beer
choices, whether you can drinkthat day or not.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you guys do have a cider too.
We do have that downstairs, soyou guys are doing a cider
product.
Any thoughts at all of movinginto, like the sodas or anything
like that?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
No, it's not something we've taken a look at.
The cider does very well.
That's a de-alk cider, so weactually ferment it to 7% and
then extract.
So the process where I say weremove flavor, we do, uh, remove
, you know, some flavor versusthe cider, but what we think we
(34:26):
end up with a nice crisp product.
But uh, I think uh, there mightbe some cider innovation in
2025.
Um, but I think uh not in termsof the hot waters and stuff
like that.
The more soda products.
Uh, I think I think we're.
Beer is keeping us busy.
Beer and cider.
I think, uh think we're there.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
There's nothing wrong with really mastering our
market.
I mean, I know Quebec.
I believe it's a Quebec companythat does some of the mixed
drinks Atypic, I think you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
That's a big one there from Quebec.
I mean, their rum and cokehonestly fooled me, uh, one time
, like it tastes like it has rumin it.
It's crazy, right.
Um, but that's, yeah, that's ifyou, if you like a rum and coke
type of thing, if you're, ifyou're, you know, if you want to
get into there.
But they have a bunch ofdifferent flavors, everything,
so we can get some of those here.
If you're like a mixed drink.
(35:20):
But I think, yeah, stay, uh, Idon't think anyone has to
venture into that because, yeah,you guys are making a great
beer product and I I'll try thecider later, but yeah, it's.
Uh, it's always interesting tosee if you want to compete in
that space, but if beer'skeeping you busy, just keep
crushing it, right that's.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
That's what we got.
To keep working at it.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Right on, all right.
It's time to move to the sillypart of the show.
Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Good to go.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
All right, cool so these questions.
It's not that silly, but wejust ask random questions.
Matt, you got the questionsthere too.
My friend, oh, did you sendthem to me?
I hope I did, If I didn't I.
Oh, did you send them to me?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I I hope I did, or if I didn't, I'm gonna send them
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
No, I got them.
I got them.
Have them okay, awesome, yeah,okay.
So, um, I'll just startquestion number one what's your
favorite quebec specific dish?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
could be anything oh, gotta go with poutine I just, I
had some on uh sunday withscheme and my daughter had
poutine for lunch.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Nice Okay.
I was going to say you chosesomething different.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I like the poutine.
Do you like poutine?
Or, specifically, do you likethe galvode?
Speaker 3 (36:36):
The galvode.
I'm not familiar with that.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Oh, that's the poutine with the frigging peas
and all that stuff on it.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah, oh, no, no, no Cheese curds sauce and all that
stuff on it.
Yeah, oh, no, no, no cheesecurds sauce and fries that's it,
yeah, simple, simple fairanswer all right number two.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
So, uh, what was the worst movie that you saw last
year?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
uh, what is it?
I, my daughter's not going tobe happy.
Uh, wicked.
I'm not a musical guy, but my,my, my daughter wanted to see
wicked.
I was just happy not to fallasleep during it, but I, I can't
take two hours of singing I.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I, I was dragged to that one as well.
How about, though I get?
There was one great part ofthat movie, I thought.
In my opinion, and it's when MrGoldblum appeared At the end of
the movie, the last 15 minutesit almost became a different
movie when Jeff Goldblumappeared in that.
It was just very silly, but I'mwith you on that, it was a long
watch.
Yeah, I saw that one.
(37:37):
Yeah, all right, number threeOkay, this is a choice you can
make.
Okay, we won't judge you.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You can only choose one, or take a drink, quebec
separates or becomes the 51ststate oh, I think Quebec becomes
the 51st state, and you know,you get an extra 20 seats in the
House and then the Housebecomes blue.
(38:09):
In the US, you get two seats onthe Senate, the Senate becomes
blue and it's done.
The US is not red anymore, it'sblue.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I like the answer.
That's a great answer.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I love it.
There's a guy out here, outeast, who talked about Quebec
separation.
His name is Rick Mercer and hesaid he had this great bit where
he said we have a plan forQuebec if they ever separate.
He says if Quebec separates,we're going to join you.
All of Canada is just going toseparate.
We're going to be one bigcountry called Quebec and then
(38:46):
we're going to put it to a voteto rename it back to.
Canada and we'll start it allover again.
That was very much what you gotgoing on there.
Your strategy Very good.
Next question Would you ratherlose your hearing or your sight?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I think I'd rather lose my hearing.
I mean, there's a documentaryright now on Netflix with the
family.
It's a family from Quebec andthey know they're.
I don't recall the name, but Isaw some of the previews and I
think the kids are.
They're traveling for one yearwith the parents because they've
(39:26):
gotten a diagnosis that they'regoing to lose their sight in a
year.
So it's on Disney and I sawthat and, as I got thinking, I
think that that would be verychallenging, having seen things
and remembering and not beingable after that.
So I think it's, I think that'dbe more challenging.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Great, I would agree with that.
So I think it's uh, I thinkthat'd be more challenging.
Hmm, Great, I, I yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I would agree with that.
Next question Okay, Um, whatstyle of beer tastes the most
like a beer with alcohol in it?
So sober carpenter lineup, oror any non-alcohol beer, I guess
.
Um, but uh, which one of yourstastes the most like a real beer
with alcohol in it that youthink it could fool somebody
with?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I think it may be the hazy IPA, because you know you
got that juicy taste in it thatwould mask the alcohol usually.
Because I think a hazy IPA,even though you got alcohol in
it, sometimes you won't feel itas much as a West coast IPA or
like a blonde or red orsomething else, because that
that juiciness you're going toyou're going to mask a bit.
(40:29):
So I think I think I'd say thehazy, the AZ IPA.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
All right.
Who would win in a celebritydeath match Lady Gaga or Celine
Dion?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh, my mom would kill me if I don't say Celine Dion
Okay, I'm a huge fan.
I got no choice.
Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
This is kind of just a wrap-up question, man.
We ask every guest this samequestion.
We were getting some awesomeanswers, take your time thinking
about it.
Question and we uh, we weregetting some awesome answers.
Take your time thinking aboutit.
Um, a piece of advice that wasgiven to you that you like to
just share on with the world.
It could be a quote that youremember and kind of live by, or
just something your mom saidthat kind of stuck with you,
(41:16):
whatever, whatever, just any oldpiece of advice that you love
to share.
I think it's a pretty simple,simple piece of advice and you
love to share.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
I think it's a pretty simple, simple piece of advice
and that's what I tell all myemployees.
Nothing spectacular or anything, but I think it's in any
circumstance, the customer'salways right, Whether it's it's
a retailer, whether it's anindividual customer.
Like, if you know, we alwaystake the time to answer
customers and we always try tomake it right, Like during the
(41:47):
winter, like you know, there'sthere's product freezes, let's
say, when we send an online, youknow you don't argue, we you
send it back or you replace itin the spring, when there's no
risk of freezing.
I mean, I think that's the mostimportant thing, most important
thing Um, customer is alwaysright.
Because I remember in school, inone of my classes, the, the,
(42:07):
the, the statistic that thatI've always remembered is one
unhappy customer will tell ninepeople for every happy customer
who tells one.
So an unhappy and especiallynow that probably has increased
because now people go and, youknow, will say it on their
Facebook pages versus, you know,melt them out.
So I think our, our, our howwe've dealt with customers
(42:33):
always right, If it's retaileror end user customer, that's,
that's a most important lesson.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Cool, good answer, awesome man.
That's it for the funnyquestions, and uh cheers to you.
Thank you so much for uh havinga beer with us and uh cheers
and uh yeah, we'll uh continueto enjoy Silver Carpenter.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Absolutely Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Cheers.
From far and wide.
We drink tonight with folksfrom all around.
Cheers, cheers, cheers.
Welcome to the Afternoon Pint.
I'm Mike Tobin.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
here and I'm Matthew Gagnon from Sober Carpenter.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Matthew Sober Carpenter.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, sober Carpenter yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'd really love to thank your team there for
sending us the care package.
At the beginning of the month,I announced that I was doing Dry
January.
This is being recorded onJanuary 27th, so I made it.
I didn't touch a drop of beeror anything, wine or anything
alcohol-related now for theentire month.
I also stayed away from HawkinsCheezies.
That was another commitmentthat I made.
(00:42):
I didn't touch those either.
I don't know if you know this,matthew, but the episode that
just came out with we had formerPremier Stephen McNeil on our
show and he actually had a sobercarpenter with us.
He was doing Dry January also,so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Very impressive.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
One of your beers with an ex-premier Excellent.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
So what do we have here?
So I'll mean, I'll start,because I mean mine's right up
here behind me, the one that I'mdrinking, that's the double IPA
, which is pretty tasty.
Yeah, hazy, exactly.
It's pretty tasty and I see youhave pictures of oranges and
creamsicles and stuff on thereand I can definitely get that on
(01:21):
there with that nice hint oforange, orange and it's.
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I like a hazy ipa, so it's good I'm drinking the what
uh black ipa right there yeah,yeah, so those were a couple of
our limited editions.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
We uh, we we've launched in in the in the past.
Yeah, cool.
And what are you drinking?
I'm drinking, uh, session ipamyself.
I'm an IPA guy, so I drink theblack, the hazy.
I got a regular IPA and I gotthe Session IPA in my fridge.
(01:54):
That's what I drink Amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're all having IPAs .
We're all psychopaths, allright.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So Sober Carpenter.
How did it all begin?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So, sober Carpenter, how did it all begin?
It's myself and my brother, arethe, the owners, the founders.
We've actually been around thethe beverage industry for a
little while.
We were.
We had a brewery in Quebeccalled, you know, two Brothers
Two Brothers Brewery in thealcoholic space for a while.
You know two brothers twobrothers were in the alcoholic
(02:26):
space for a while Also do abrand on the alcoholics.
I think that's called Pop Shop.
We do the alcoholic version.
So we've been in that space fora while and you know same thing
, I think as many people.
You know we were drinking a lotof beer ourselves, personally,
and you know getting a bit older, slowing down in the senior
league where we play hockey, youknow just feeling that.
(02:47):
You know getting a bit older,slowing down in the senior
league where we play hockey, youknow just feeling that.
You know just getting.
You know you feel you get a bitolder.
So we decided you know we werein the beer business.
We decided, you know what couldwe do to improve the category?
Because we felt there was aneed and we were just, you know,
when we started the business,taking a look at the non-out
category.
It was, like you know, end of2017, 2018.
(03:08):
So really there wasn't much.
You know, the partakes of thisworld or athletic brewing were
just starting up.
We were seeing, like you know,there's an opportunity.
We should get involved.
There's some opportunitiesstarted talking with companies
like athletic brewing, brew dogor bravis out of the us to just
look at it from a maybe justdistribution portion, just
(03:31):
importing from the us some ofthe beers that were starting up
and that we saw that were verygood quality, like an athletic
brewing, which I talked to backin 2018, early 2018, during port
.
And you know, as we had thesediscussions and it was, you know
, not going the way we wanted orit was a bit too slow, we said,
hey, we know beer, I think wecould do a good product and we
(03:54):
decided to do it ourselves andwork on developing a brand and,
it's more importantly, workingon developing some recipes and
products that we thoughtCanadians could enjoy and have a
top-notch product in terms ofquality.
So we started the route oftalking to potential partners in
terms of distribution mostlyAmerican guys and then we
decided to go let's create ourown brand, own product, do it in
(04:18):
Canada, bottle it in Canada andthen try to sell as much as we
can in Canada and sell as muchas we can in the US.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What was your approach?
Did it start on a communitylevel, like Sober Carpenter?
Were you just selling it inyour hometown, or how did you
start selling it?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No, we actually right off the bat saw that there was
an opportunity at a nationallevel and that's sort of the
approach we took with retailershaving knowledge of.
You know, rather than going theroute of trying to sell to the
BCLDB and the AB&L and all thoseliquor boards that maybe the
beer guys are more traditionallyused to selling, we went and
(04:59):
saw national distributors andnational retailers and said
here's a product and we thinkthere's.
And said here's a product andwe think there's.
You know, it's a market that'sgoing to develop.
Look at, you know, on your shelfyou have Plastowler, you have
you know old, you know O'Doul's,you know like O'Doul's and
stuff like that.
You know like, who's bought anO'Doul's?
(05:20):
I've never seen anybody drinkit.
So we went and we we sort oftold retailers that, um, you
know we have an offering of anational product and that is is
we can distribute everywhere andbuild a national brand.
So rather than than trying toto go to the liquor boards and
sort of have a provincial orregional distribution, we right
(05:41):
away tried to develop nationalrelationship with retailers like
Sobeys and Metro and stuff likethat.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
That is kind of the advantage, eh, the advantage of
not the fact that there's noalcohol.
You can just go to anybodywho's willing to sell your
product, right?
So that's kind of the uniqueadvantage of anyone who's
getting into that non-alcoholicspace that still wants to sell a
product for people who stillwant to have a beer at the end
of the day, or however many youwant to have at the end of the
(06:14):
day and and you know, and stillbe able to drive home or
whatever, right, how do you?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
get alcohol out of beer.
Do you make the beer and thenremove the alcohol?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
yeah, it's actually like.
So there's a couple differentways to do it.
Um, and so there's the, the,the, let's say the, the european
way, which is a de-alc, right,you'll, you'll let's say, you
drink a heineken zero they'll do, uh, they'll actually ferment
it with beer and then they do aprocess where they de-alkalize
it.
You can de-alk with either aslow distillation, where you'll
(06:47):
burn the alcohol off, or you'lldo, let's say, a very small
filtering system.
The problem we found with thisprocess and that's why european
beers are, let's say, all blondeis they'll take out the flavor,
right, they'll take out.
When you take either with youburn off alcohol, you're going
to take off some of the flavor,or, if you filter it right,
(07:08):
you're going to take off some ofthe flavoring.
So what we do is we do a processcalled arrested fermentation.
So we're basically like doing arecipe with what we would do
for like a normal beer with abit less malt, because we don't
want to have like residualsugars and have like a sweet,
unfermented taste at the end,where you have like sort of a
(07:29):
heavy aftertaste because youhave unfermented sugars.
So we basically do everythingthe same way as you do a beer,
but then we don't allow it toferment super high.
We we we crash it before ithits 0.05.
So we basically bring thetemperature extremely cold in
(07:51):
the tank so the fermentationcan't continue, and then we
package it, ferment it so itcan't restart the fermentation.
So that's our process.
It's called the restedfermentation and it's a process
that most brewers will use.
You can also use anon-fermentable yeast that will
convert the sugars into alcohol.
(08:13):
Same thing.
We've experimented with that,but we find that really the best
result to have sort of productslike the black IPA or the hazy
IPA that will really have somenice hoppy flavors is a rest of
fermentation.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Are some beers harder to make than others?
They must be because, like this, this must be a challenging one
to make compared to maybe likea lighter lager style or
something else.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, definitely IPAs are more difficult.
Anything with dry hopping isgoing to be more difficult and a
lot of people think like, oh,it's non-alcoholic, should be,
you know, cheaper than alcoholbeer.
It's actually more difficultand more expensive, for example,
or IPA, because when you dryhop we can't dry hop with hot
liquid, so we need to put evenmore hops to extract that hop
(09:03):
flavor because it's you know,it's like seeping, seeping tea,
seeping hops.
If it's warm you're going toget a lot more flavor extracted
out of there.
When you're doing a dry hopwith cold liquid, it's a lot
tougher to extract thatflavoring.
So we have to pull it out a lotmore with anything Like if you
have more hops, more material ina brew, it's tougher to.
(09:25):
At cold temperature it'stougher to extract, tougher to
then, you know, centrifuge, getall the material out.
So those, those IPAs that wehave, especially the more like
our, our traditional West coastIPA and our, our hazy IPA, are
the most challenging beers to dofor sure.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's a.
That's a big thing I think thata lot of people think about.
Is they think I mean, everyoneknows that because there's
alcohol and things, taxes arehigher and all that stuff on
those, and so that's why peoplesometimes justify the fact that
you know the cost of beer.
But people often will say thatyou know why is my non-alcoholic
(10:05):
beer almost the same price asregular beer?
But yeah, I don't think theyrealize the, the, the craft is
still there, but also you haveto.
Yeah, like you said, there'ssome things.
It's easy to just let thingssit and ferment versus
controlling the process a lotmore along the way, which is why
(10:26):
you guys, you know, end uphaving to spend a little bit
more to kind of do the process.
I don't think people realizethat.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, oh, no for sure .
And the ingredient cost.
At the start there's not amajor difference.
Like I said, because we areusing basically a same recipe
and then you know, even somehops we need to use more hops.
And the process is we're stillfermenting the product.
We're just fermenting it at acontrolled temperature.
So instead of having a tankwhere you're going to let the
temperature rise up to 35, 40degrees Celsius and then just
(10:54):
have bubbling in it, just let itgo, we have to control it.
So the fermentation takes a bitlonger and it's something where
you also have to watch it a lotmore.
A normal beer you can, and onceall the sugars are gone, you're
good.
Like us, we have a very goodcontract packer.
We don't have our own plant.
We work with a company calledEquals Brewing, which is a great
(11:18):
partner, but there's a breweron site always checking the tank
because as soon as you can'tlet it go, because if it goes
over 0.5, 0.6, you're in trouble.
So you can't just say like,leave the tank and come back in
a week and and you know, call ita day, yeah, so yeah, it's a
challenging process.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
How much beer are you guys or how much non-alcohol
beer are you guys pumping out?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
now we're.
We're right now in about six,6,000, 6,500 accounts in North
America.
Amazing.
So we sell accounts in NorthAmerica.
Amazing, we sell in 28 statesacross in the 28 states in the
US.
We're available in all of allthe provinces in Canada.
We try to get as much out aspossible, but we're pretty proud
(12:03):
to have that many accounts.
It's just a question of peopledrinking as much as possible and
then we'll pump out as much aspossible.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Cool.
What are your concerns?
or are there concerns withwhat's going on of people
drinking as much as possible andthen we'll pump out as much as
possible?
Oh cool, yeah.
I mean, what are your concerns?
Or are there concerns withwhat's going on in America right
now with tariffs and trades?
And I mean there's a lot oftalk about things and and, and
you know, being able to exportto America might become a
challenge in the near future.
Do you guys?
Are you guys dealing with thathead on, or are you?
Are you even seeing any of thatin your world?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So far we've made sure we're addressing with our
customers.
I think we're very proud of thefact that we're a small
Canadian company and we'remaking a little dent on the US
market.
On CNNcom for their dry gen, wehad a little blurb at the end.
It's like with the leadedbrewing and Heineken zero.
(12:52):
Like it's pretty cool that youknow two little guys from you
know co-packing in London,ontario, or are on the CNN
website.
So we're we're very proud andwhat we're, what we're doing to
prepare sort of for it.
We, we don't want to startco-packing in the US.
That's sort of a you know offthe table resort.
So we're talking with ourpartners and saying, hey, if
(13:15):
this happens, how do we keep theproduct in Canada?
Like we're going to, we'regoing to, you know, we're going
to eat something.
How can our partners like I'drather buy four packs in London
and co-pack in London and buycans in Toronto, like, but if it
(13:35):
all goes to the US, nobody'sgoing to make money off of that
right?
So how can our suppliers helpout?
And we're going to eat most ofit.
So we're having thosediscussions but hopefully it
doesn't come to that, that thatwe need to uh, tighten our belt.
Hopefully, uh, you know, calmerheads prevail and and do the
supplies mostly for yourbusiness.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
They mostly come from Canada or they come in from the
US, like to the hops and suchso hops?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
we?
We have some hops from.
Uh, we do use some Canadianhops.
We have some European hops.
We have some hops from the USas well.
Uh, most cans are manufacturedin Toronto.
Yeah, um, so so.
So cans are manufactured inToronto.
Uh, a lot of them.
The malts will come from canada.
Most of the malts will comefrom canada.
Some malts, some, some morespecialty malts, will be from
(14:16):
europe, but most of the maltsare actually canadian.
Um, and then all the co-packingis done in canada as well.
The only content that is us iswhen you're getting into, uh,
you know, some of the the WestCoast hops, you know, from
Washington, the Citra Simcoe.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I just opened the blonde here just because you
know I'm on my second one,because it's a hard Monday night
.
You know we're going into it.
So I mean, yeah, I can see thehere like two row dominantly.
Obviously everything's going tobe two row.
I assume that's Canadian tworow.
But yeah, you get your carapilskind of malt in there, which is
that's what gets that nicecaramel kind of flavor on it.
So you have traditionalHallertal and Zotz hops on there
(14:56):
.
So those must be the Europeanones that you're bringing in.
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to trya blonde beer with Zotz hops
because generally that's likefor a pilsner, like you know,
type of style, like atraditional European pilsner.
I just something about them.
Those noble hops are just yeahthey're great, definitely stand
(15:18):
out.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And and we tried to, uh, when we develop each beer,
we tried to really have adifferent you know hop profile
to them.
Like you know, our our sessionhas galaxy hops, or, or, or,
let's say, our original IPAs itwas really West coast IPAs.
It'll be all West coastAmerican hops.
So we tried to have differenthop profiles to all the beers so
that they really taste distinct.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Where's the name come from?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
the Sober Carpenter Everybody.
Yeah, it's a question, we get alot.
Somebody wrote to us and said,like you know, it's the original
Sober Carpenter is Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Somebody came up with that.
I thought it was a good, goodanswer we should use that that's
not true, because he turnedwater into wine.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That's what.
That's what he was drinking.
He wasn't.
He wasn't going to leave sober.
A couple things when we startedbrainstorming on the name
myself and my brother, you know,you go through these lists and
then you, you know you sort ofuh brainstorm, and then you, you
talk to your friends and yourwife about hey, what do you
think sticks?
And there's a couple of thingswe wanted to make sure we had.
One was we wanted to make surethat, you know, people knew that
we were a non-alcoholic product, right?
(16:19):
So, having the word sober inthere, we wanted not to shy away
from that fact and really haveit in the name and really
communicate that we're, we're anon-alcoholic brand.
You know we'll never do analcoholic product.
It will never be.
You know, a boozy carpenter.
(16:40):
You know we're sober carpenter.
That that said, that's all.
Yeah, yeah.
We wanted a name that is easyto pronounce in French and in
English.
You know, we want a name thatyou know because of that
regionality too, like we're veryproud that I think we can say
(17:00):
with the fact that we'reprobably the most you know one
of the really national brands,craft national brands in Canada,
because we're Quebec is sort ofits own thing, right.
Quebec is a difficult market.
You French obviously an issue,so we wanted to have a name that
stands out and is pronounced.
It is pronounceable in Englishand French.
(17:22):
So in Quebec, you know we're,we're the number two craft any
beer after all.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Sanchez from Boreal and so for a brand that's
manufactured in ontario.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
That that's pretty neat.
You know it's not la boquera,it's not uh, l'alchimiste, you
know it's sober carpenter.
So we wanted a name that youcan pronounce in english and
french, so that it's we cantruly build a national brand.
And the last thing was was aname that that's fun and and
funny.
So we thought, like you knowwhy, silver carpenter?
(17:54):
And the same reason like why?
Because it's it's funny, it'sfun, and that those are the
three, three things why we'renamed silver carpenter you said
you the blonde, we can get thathere, I guess, yeah, the
blonde's at sobeys uh, I knowit's a great blonde.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
There are standard IPAs at Sobeys as well.
I really like the red too.
Man, after trying the samplerpack, did you try the?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I know I gave you one out of the big.
I know there's a red.
I have a red down in the fridgedownstairs.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I was surprised how great that one was as well,
you're really nailing theflavors.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I'm interested to try it.
I saw that it's an Irish Red.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Irish Red yeah, with Windsor yeast.
Actually, I think the Red isour most decorated beer.
It's the one that's won themost awards for us.
It was actually in USA Todaynamed the best non-alcoholic red
in North America.
So, last year they had, you know, the best IPA, the best blonde,
(18:59):
and our red was named as thebest NA red in North America.
So we're very proud of thatfact and I think it's probably
our best beer.
Like awards, at leastcompetition judges feel that
it's the best.
That's the one that's won themost medals.
For us, cool.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, I don't think that was in Sobeys the red.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
The Sobeys.
Distribution in Atlantic Canadais challenging.
We've got to work on ourdistribution.
So, you know, some stores canorder but all the stores like
have what we call is it's like aflex listing, right, so a store
could order it that the productexists, but we have limited
representation in like AtlanticCanada.
(19:44):
Right, because to get in thestores we need we have we use
brokers.
We don't have our own employeeson the, we're not big enough,
you know.
Use brokers.
We don't have our own employeeson the on the, we're not big
enough, you know.
So we don't have our ownemployees going store to store.
We use brokers and what ourbroker in atlanta, canada, has a
has a couple bodies but notenough to cover, you know, the
whole territory and calling onit.
(20:05):
But we work every day on it.
They're working every day on it.
We're adding stores, addingflavors, um, and uh yeah.
So so just going increasing,but you know the best way to get
all of our flavors or tryanything is really the website
silvercarpentercom and on thereyou can order whatever flavors
you want.
You know, we have two, two casesfree delivery after that and we
(20:27):
we often have very good deals.
Uh, we just had, like last week, an ipa bundle, so you can just
buy you, you know, every IPAlike as a special package, so
that's the best way to do it.
Or else we also have Amazoncom.
That we sell.
Just to get one case freeshipping with your shampoo or
whatever else you're buying onAmazon is a good way to just try
(20:49):
.
You know, get one case insteadof buying two or three to get a
free shipping.
So but we're working ondistribution hard and trying to
get also some some food andrestaurant distribution in
Atlantic Canada.
So we're working hard on that.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
No, you know what, like I think Mike and I will,
just we can do, we can do somedistribution for you down here,
we'll work for beer, you justsend us.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
For you down here, we'll work for beer, you just
send us keep sending us carepackages and we'll spread the
word out here, but yeah, youknow well.
But but to find a point though,I mean, uh, even now, today, we
, we record our show at amicrobrewery or a pub, and
that's right.
So it's all mobile podcast gearwe have.
We go out and we're quite rightthere on the spot, um, and we
go to various pubs andmicrobreweries all across nova
scotia.
A real pain in the earthsometimes is if they don't have
(21:33):
an alcohol beer or if they havea really lousy one.
Right, because I, uh, I might,I often don't have a second, uh,
alcoholic beer when I go recordthese shows yeah, and you know
what we had.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
We had a good uh brand from pei here.
They made only two.
The beer was excellent.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
What brand is that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That's Upstreet.
They make alcoholic beer, butthey also make two of their
styles in non-alcoholic Upstreetthe brewery slash barbecue
place pulled out of here, Ithink you can still get it.
It's called Libra, I think youcan still get it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Libra's pretty popular here.
It's called Libra.
I think you can still get it.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It was pretty popular here, yeah, it was pretty
popular, but honestly I thoughtit was one of the better ones.
But honestly, I'm really reallyenjoying this blonde, and
blonde's not really a style Ienjoy that much.
But I think it's just becauseyou can taste the hops quite a
bit on it, which is good,because I that those two hops.
(22:32):
But um the um, it's amazing how, how far this non-alcoholic
beer has come, because I wasdefinitely one of those people
who, you know, pre-covid and allthat stuff was like you'll
never, you know, I'll neverdrink it because there isn't any
that are any good.
Um, but that's changingdrastically now.
(22:59):
Right, there's a big market forit and now I feel like I can go
out and I can grab six of themand you can drive home Cause he
can, you know, drink six beerwhile you're sitting there
talking to people and get inyour car and go home.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
A good point, though Now on a lot of these a lot of
these.
I don't think there's warningson yours, but there is warnings
If I had the Corona Zero Alcoholin the summer at the house and
they actually say right on, donot drink more than two.
I have no idea why it said thatand if they had any kind of
concern other than maybesomebody feeling it.
(23:30):
I don't know know.
Is there any concern if youhave consuming multiple of these
beers, like there would beconsuming regular beer?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
not aware.
No, not, not on our side.
I'm just trying to think forcorona.
The only thing I can think forcorona is they had they had
added like vitamin d in thereyeah they had vitamin d to sort
of make it like a special thingthat, like you know, summer and
then.
So maybe that was the reason tonot consume too much vitamin d
um, and they may have actuallyremoved that from their, their
(24:04):
beer, but I'm not, I'm not toosure, but I think that might be
the reason why they had to.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I think it was more along the lines that their beer
just tastes like garbage and youshouldn't drink.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It's a good hot tub.
Beer, buddy, it's a good hottub, I'm an easy guy.
I'm an easy drinker, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I tub beer buddy.
It's a good hot tub.
I'm an easy guy.
I'm an easy drinker I'm notinto.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I'm not uh pretty, I'll drink anything.
Uh pretty.
Well, I'll try it in it, soyeah.
So you guys are located inmontreal, right?
So yeah, our we're based out ofmontreal.
Uh, myself and my brother livein montreal, and then we uh work
with equals brewing out of, uh,london, ontario.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Okay, so our products are manufactured in london oh
so our products are manufacturedin London, oh so they're
actually manufactured in London.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Oh, okay, yep, yep, yep, everything is manufactured
in London, ontario, and then weship from there all over the
Canada, and then we ship themthere to Detroit and then from
Detroit all over the US.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Okay, so if someone went to Montreal they would not
be able to go to your brewerythen.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
No, no, nope, no, they would, uh, they, they, they
could come and knock on oursales office, and then we have
uh we have some beer, but, uh,they won't see big fermenters
and uh, uh, they won't see hugefermenters.
And we went that route as well,just because you know, uh,
there's, building a brewery isjust so, uh, it's, it's time.
(25:22):
Consuming takes a lot ofresources and I don't think, you
know, you can only be good atso many things.
You know you can be good atpacking stuff, you can be good
at developing recipes, you canbe good in sales and marketing,
you can be good in customerservice.
And we know our strength wasn'tto go knock on doors and talk
(25:44):
to banks or investors and try toget a couple millions to build
equipment.
We know our style is we're goodin marketing, we're good in
product development and we'regood at talking to retailers and
working with retailers customerservice.
So those are our strengths andthat's why we partnered with a
contract contract packer, um, todo that and uh, so you know
(26:06):
there's really two routes and wetook that route.
We think it's it was the bestoption for us.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Uh, at the time, yeah , oh, I mean, it definitely lets
you guys focus mostly on, likeyou know, the actual marketing
and developing recipes andthings like that, and just let
someone else brew it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, it makessense.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
It beats shoveling grains, that's for sure.
And brewing is a lot of fun,but it's certainly challenging,
right?
It's seven days a week, 24hours a day, it's nonstop.
So it's good to have.
You have to find the rightpartner and you gotta, you gotta
you gotta love it to do it forsure.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And then just like all the like, the brewing parts,
the fun part it's like the partis.
The other part is like thecleaning.
That's the part that I always Ialways hated about it is making
sure everything's clean,because beard, you know it can
get infected, not that it'llhurt you, it never, it'll never
hurt you but you know it tastesand smells pretty bad when it is
(27:09):
and uh, so you got to make sureyou're cleaning things
exceptionally, exceptionallywell, and now even more so for
you guys, because you guys arenot fermenting it all the way,
so the, you know pathogensaren't actually being cooked off
with the, the fermentationprocess.
So is that even a concern foryou guys when it comes to like,
like, if you had any situationslike that where you know batches
(27:30):
go off or anything like that,does it happen more often than
regular breweries?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think you know, working with equals we were.
We actually sort of like I'dsay we sort of both helped each
other out, because the uh uh onething we you have to do with
any beer in arrestedfermentation is pasteurization
right okay, you have topasteurize your beer.
Um, and that's a route.
(27:55):
So basically, you're killingeverything in can and there's.
You know, some people saypasteurization can oxidize the
beer.
But the reality is, if you havea low level of oxygen or any
low level oxygen in the productand you pasteurize it, what
you're going to do is you'regoing to one, you kill
(28:16):
everything in there so you can'thave any risk of contamination
or refermentation, but you'rebasically aging the product if
there there's any aging to doany oxidation right away.
So once you get, like our, ourbeer pasteurized, it will taste
the same thing day one as it'lltaste in two years.
It's not like an IPA withreally fresh hops where if it's
(28:40):
three months old, you're seeingthat the hops are losing their
flavor.
So fermentation does that.
The other thing that, becausewe're NA, what we had to deal
with in terms of retail is,let's say, the AB&L and LCBO
they all work with alcoholicproducts.
(29:00):
Let's say the ABNL and LCBOthey all work with alcoholic
products.
So it's not in their mandate toask for certain types of.
They don't ask for auditcertifications, for example.
So we've been.
We've sold product to Costco,we've sold product to Loblaws.
(29:21):
All these retailers havecertain standards of quality
that require high levelcertifications.
So because of that we've had toput in place with equals,
certain standards for cleaningtracking that might be above
what a regular brewery has to do.
That might be above what aregular brewery has to do,
(29:43):
because the standards of aCostco are higher than what the
LCDO will require in terms offacility certification.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Okay, yeah, and I mean, like, when I look at this,
on top of that, the caloriesand stuff like that are pretty
good too for people.
Anyone Like that's anotherfactor with this.
Without the alcohol thecalories tend to be much lower
too.
So that's another thing.
But what like is there?
Because I mean, it's anon-alcoholic product and you
(30:19):
know, sometimes with alcohol andwith hops like things tend to
last a little longer.
But is there a shelf life foryour like for the beers, because
there's non-alcoholic on there?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Sorry.
So, uh, yeah, there is a shelflife.
The shelf life varies dependingon the uh, depending on the uh
on the beer, yeah, um and then.
But what we do also is we dobench testing.
We keep samples of every youknow, every beer we're brewing.
We got a couple and we'll taste, we'll test them, uh, down the
line and to see if any, you know, if product is, is we need to,
(30:59):
uh, you know, send a note to thedistributors.
Maybe this lot number pull abit faster, or or you know that
that's fine.
We have our standard, standardlevels, but we usually have very
, very high level of turnover ona product because, as the
volume has grown, what we'vebeen able to do is so, rather
(31:19):
than doing it's a bit moreexpensive what we do, but I
think it helps with the productturnover.
So, when we brew an IPA let'ssay a regular IPA we'll brew it
and then we'll do part of the.
We'll brew it almost every weekor every two weeks, and every
week and every two weeks we do abit of 355 ml, we do a bit of
(31:41):
USA product and we do a bit ofCanada product 355 ml.
We do a bit of usa product andwe do a bit of canda product.
So rather than saying week one,we're doing all 355 ml and we
have 3 000 cases of 355.
We do a bit of everything andso it helps with the velocity um
and the turnover of the productawesome.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, that's great yeah what's in the future for
Sober Carpenter?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I think what we really want to work on and what
we want to focus is justensuring that that we keep
bringing new products to thetable and innovating.
You mentioned how the quality ofbeer has has increased, and
(32:26):
that is because there is a lotof competition and that's
positive for the consumerbecause it forces all the
companies like us to sort oftake a look at the product and
make sure that we're continuallyimproving it and bringing new
products to the table.
So that's one thing we want todo is continue those limited
series, series or limitededition products.
Bring those, bring some to themarket, um and uh, so that
(32:51):
that's a big uh, big focus ofours and in 2025 and uh, and I
think we want to make sure thatwe increase the distribution.
In terms of reaching, I thinkretail stores like the Sobeys
and the Loblaws of this worldare getting more product onto
(33:16):
the shelves and increasing theshelf space.
I think the next target reallyfor all the NA products is
restaurants and bars making surethat you know you have two or
three options of NA drinks onthe menus and they're printed on
the menus.
I think that at that level,probably we're one or two years
(33:39):
behind in terms of what's in therestaurants versus what's on
the store shelves.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I hope to see that too, I think it's just good beer
choices, whether you can drinkthat day or not.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you guys do have a cider too.
We do have that downstairs, soyou guys are doing a cider
product.
Any thoughts at all of movinginto, like the sodas or anything
like that?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
No, it's not something we've taken a look at.
The cider does very well.
That's a de-alk cider, so weactually ferment it to 7% and
then extract.
So the process where I say weremove flavor, we do, uh, remove
, you know, some flavor versusthe cider, but what we think we
(34:26):
end up with a nice crisp product.
But uh, I think uh, there mightbe some cider innovation in
2025.
Um, but I think uh not in termsof the hot waters and stuff
like that.
The more soda products.
Uh, I think I think we're.
Beer is keeping us busy.
Beer and cider.
I think, uh think we're there.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
There's nothing wrong with really mastering our
market.
I mean, I know Quebec.
I believe it's a Quebec companythat does some of the mixed
drinks Atypic, I think you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
That's a big one there from Quebec.
I mean, their rum and cokehonestly fooled me, uh, one time
, like it tastes like it has rumin it.
It's crazy, right.
Um, but that's, yeah, that's ifyou, if you like a rum and coke
type of thing, if you're, ifyou're, you know, if you want to
get into there.
But they have a bunch ofdifferent flavors, everything,
so we can get some of those here.
If you're like a mixed drink.
(35:20):
But I think, yeah, stay, uh, Idon't think anyone has to
venture into that because, yeah,you guys are making a great
beer product and I I'll try thecider later, but yeah, it's.
Uh, it's always interesting tosee if you want to compete in
that space, but if beer'skeeping you busy, just keep
crushing it, right that's.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
That's what we got.
To keep working at it.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Right on, all right.
It's time to move to the sillypart of the show.
Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Good to go.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
All right, cool so these questions.
It's not that silly, but wejust ask random questions.
Matt, you got the questionsthere too.
My friend, oh, did you sendthem to me?
I hope I did, If I didn't I.
Oh, did you send them to me?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I I hope I did, or if I didn't, I'm gonna send them
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
No, I got them.
I got them.
Have them okay, awesome, yeah,okay.
So, um, I'll just startquestion number one what's your
favorite quebec specific dish?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
could be anything oh, gotta go with poutine I just, I
had some on uh sunday withscheme and my daughter had
poutine for lunch.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Nice Okay.
I was going to say you chosesomething different.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I like the poutine.
Do you like poutine?
Or, specifically, do you likethe galvode?
Speaker 3 (36:36):
The galvode.
I'm not familiar with that.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Oh, that's the poutine with the frigging peas
and all that stuff on it.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah, oh, no, no, no Cheese curds sauce and all that
stuff on it.
Yeah, oh, no, no, no cheesecurds sauce and fries that's it,
yeah, simple, simple fairanswer all right number two.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
So, uh, what was the worst movie that you saw last
year?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
uh, what is it?
I, my daughter's not going tobe happy.
Uh, wicked.
I'm not a musical guy, but my,my, my daughter wanted to see
wicked.
I was just happy not to fallasleep during it, but I, I can't
take two hours of singing I.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I, I was dragged to that one as well.
How about, though I get?
There was one great part ofthat movie, I thought.
In my opinion, and it's when MrGoldblum appeared At the end of
the movie, the last 15 minutesit almost became a different
movie when Jeff Goldblumappeared in that.
It was just very silly, but I'mwith you on that, it was a long
watch.
Yeah, I saw that one.
(37:37):
Yeah, all right, number threeOkay, this is a choice you can
make.
Okay, we won't judge you.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You can only choose one, or take a drink, quebec
separates or becomes the 51ststate oh, I think Quebec becomes
the 51st state, and you know,you get an extra 20 seats in the
House and then the Housebecomes blue.
(38:09):
In the US, you get two seats onthe Senate, the Senate becomes
blue and it's done.
The US is not red anymore, it'sblue.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I like the answer.
That's a great answer.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I love it.
There's a guy out here, outeast, who talked about Quebec
separation.
His name is Rick Mercer and hesaid he had this great bit where
he said we have a plan forQuebec if they ever separate.
He says if Quebec separates,we're going to join you.
All of Canada is just going toseparate.
We're going to be one bigcountry called Quebec and then
(38:46):
we're going to put it to a voteto rename it back to.
Canada and we'll start it allover again.
That was very much what you gotgoing on there.
Your strategy Very good.
Next question Would you ratherlose your hearing or your sight?
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I think I'd rather lose my hearing.
I mean, there's a documentaryright now on Netflix with the
family.
It's a family from Quebec andthey know they're.
I don't recall the name, but Isaw some of the previews and I
think the kids are.
They're traveling for one yearwith the parents because they've
(39:26):
gotten a diagnosis that they'regoing to lose their sight in a
year.
So it's on Disney and I sawthat and, as I got thinking, I
think that that would be verychallenging, having seen things
and remembering and not beingable after that.
So I think it's, I think that'dbe more challenging.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Great, I would agree with that.
So I think it's uh, I thinkthat'd be more challenging.
Hmm, Great, I, I yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I would agree with that.
Next question Okay, Um, whatstyle of beer tastes the most
like a beer with alcohol in it?
So sober carpenter lineup, oror any non-alcohol beer, I guess
.
Um, but uh, which one of yourstastes the most like a real beer
with alcohol in it that youthink it could fool somebody
with?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I think it may be the hazy IPA, because you know you
got that juicy taste in it thatwould mask the alcohol usually.
Because I think a hazy IPA,even though you got alcohol in
it, sometimes you won't feel itas much as a West coast IPA or
like a blonde or red orsomething else, because that
that juiciness you're going toyou're going to mask a bit.
(40:29):
So I think I think I'd say thehazy, the AZ IPA.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
All right.
Who would win in a celebritydeath match Lady Gaga or Celine
Dion?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh, my mom would kill me if I don't say Celine Dion
Okay, I'm a huge fan.
I got no choice.
Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
This is kind of just a wrap-up question, man.
We ask every guest this samequestion.
We were getting some awesomeanswers, take your time thinking
about it.
Question and we uh, we weregetting some awesome answers.
Take your time thinking aboutit.
Um, a piece of advice that wasgiven to you that you like to
just share on with the world.
It could be a quote that youremember and kind of live by, or
just something your mom saidthat kind of stuck with you,
(41:16):
whatever, whatever, just any oldpiece of advice that you love
to share.
I think it's a pretty simple,simple piece of advice and you
love to share.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
I think it's a pretty simple, simple piece of advice
and that's what I tell all myemployees.
Nothing spectacular or anything, but I think it's in any
circumstance, the customer'salways right, Whether it's it's
a retailer, whether it's anindividual customer.
Like, if you know, we alwaystake the time to answer
customers and we always try tomake it right, Like during the
(41:47):
winter, like you know, there'sthere's product freezes, let's
say, when we send an online, youknow you don't argue, we you
send it back or you replace itin the spring, when there's no
risk of freezing.
I mean, I think that's the mostimportant thing, most important
thing Um, customer is alwaysright.
Because I remember in school, inone of my classes, the, the,
(42:07):
the, the statistic that thatI've always remembered is one
unhappy customer will tell ninepeople for every happy customer
who tells one.
So an unhappy and especiallynow that probably has increased
because now people go and, youknow, will say it on their
Facebook pages versus, you know,melt them out.
So I think our, our, our howwe've dealt with customers
(42:33):
always right, If it's retaileror end user customer, that's,
that's a most important lesson.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Cool, good answer, awesome man.
That's it for the funnyquestions, and uh cheers to you.
Thank you so much for uh havinga beer with us and uh cheers
and uh yeah, we'll uh continueto enjoy Silver Carpenter.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Absolutely Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Cheers.
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