EP21 Grant Wood: Brewing Legends, Revolver's Rise, and Crafting a Non-Alcoholic Future

Grant Wood, a true luminary in the brewing industry, takes us on an extraordinary journey through his storied career. From the moment he first set foot in the Pearl Brewing Company lab in San Antonio to his transformative experience at the Siebel Institute of Technology, Grant discovered a passion that would shape his destiny. Listen as he shares the fascinating stories behind crafting iconic beers like Sam Adams Black Lager and reveals the pivotal moments that led him to co-found Revolver Brewing in Texas. Brewing enthusiasts and industry newcomers alike will find inspiration in Grant's reflections on the mentors and experiences that guided him through the craft beer revolution.

The adventure doesn't stop there. We explore the exhilarating highs and tough challenges Grant faced while building Revolver Brewing from the ground up. Discover the serendipitous creation of Blood and Honey, a brew that captured the hearts of Texans and marked a significant turning point for the brewery. Grant candidly recounts the strategic moves and relentless negotiations that led to the sale of Revolver to Miller Coors, offering a rare glimpse into the complex world of brewery acquisitions. His story is one of resilience, creativity, and the unyielding pursuit of excellence in a rapidly evolving industry.

As Grant steps into a new chapter, he embraces the frontier of non-alcoholic beer alongside Tom Holland with the innovative brand Biro. Uncover the creative process behind launching a brand that challenges the norms, utilizing cutting-edge brewing techniques to retain the flavors beer lovers cherish. With a focus on lifestyle and wellness, Grant shares insights on the growing popularity of non-alcoholic options and hints at what's next for the industry. Whether you're a seasoned beer aficionado or simply curious about the future of brewing, you're sure to find this episode both enlightening and exhilarating.

To order Bero Beers:  www.berobrewing.com

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Episode Transcript

Scott (00:00):
My guest today is Grant Wood.
Originally from Irving, exas,grant has been in the brewing
industry since 1985.
He began his career at thePearl Brewing Company in San
Antonio after receiving hisBachelor of Science in Food
Science and Technology fromTexas A&M University, a 1987
graduate of the Long Course atSiebel Institute of Technology.
From 1989 to 1995, he wasAssistant Brewmaster at Lone

(00:20):
Star Brewing Company.
In 1995, he departed for Bostonand was Brewer and production
manager at the Boston BeerCompany, where we met.
He was involved in many roles,including product development of
Sam Adams beers, angry Orchardciders and Twisted Tea.
In 2012, he left Samuel Adamsafter 16 years and co-founded
Revolver Brewing Company inGranbury, texas.
As brewmaster, he created avariety of award-winning beers,

(00:42):
including Blood and Honey.
After selling the successfulcraft brewery to Miller Coors in
2019, he came out of retirementto create the beers for Tom
Holland's new non-alcoholic beerbrand, biro.
He's received his diploma ofbrewing from the Institute of
Distilling and Brewing in the UK, been a beer judge at the Great
American Beer Festival, theWorld Beer Cup and the BIIA in
the UK.

(01:02):
Grant Wood, welcome to CarneySaves the World.
Thanks, cott.
How are you Good?
Good to be here, good to haveyou.
Thank you so much for coming on.
You've had quite an interestinglast year or so, but I want to
get into the early stuff withyou first, before we head over
to the Bureau talk.
Sure, one of the things thatreally struck me was you started
in 1985.
That was not the homebrew crazybrew time to be starting.

Grant Wood (01:24):
Not at all, not at all.
Yeah, 85.
Well, you know, in the mid-80sI'd just come out of college and
got married, needed a job.
This is like in 84.
Yeah, I got married with no job.
My parents never really forgaveme for that one.
My wife and I moved to SanAntonio and I had taken a job
with this tiny picante saucemanufacturer.

(01:46):
They had just been carved offfrom the old paste picante and
so they were trying to starttheir own brand and anyway it
was terrible, terrible first jobout of college and worked there
for about four months, kind ofquit.
It was just so bad, so manyhours, so little support.
And so I did some odd jobs fora bit, taking care of
handicapped adults and did somecommercial painting of hotel

(02:11):
rooms and houses and stuff.
I give a lot of credit to mywife, susan, for motivating me
in my career and she told me toget off my ass and get a real
job.
I sent out some resumes in SanAntonio and was very fortunate I
got one interview and with thatinterview I got hired at Pearl
Brewing Company.
I had come at beer and brewingas I need a job.

(02:31):
You know, to me at the time inthe mid 80s, beer was sort of
just like alcoholic soda pop.
It was great for washing downpizza and hot dogs and chips and
salsa, but as a class ofbeverage it just didn't register
much for me.
I didn't grow up with beerdrinkers.
My parents were liquor drinkersand you know it was very rare
to see a beer in the house oreven at parties that they gave

(02:53):
the fortunate thing getting in,you know, getting hired into the
laboratory there, kind oflearned how beer was made and
the composition of it and justfell in love with it.
Then it was like, oh, this iswhat it's about.
Oh, this is really cool.
You know, you're bringing allthese agricultural products
together into a cool facilitywith lots of copper and cooking.
And then the fermentation piecekind of the whole magic behind

(03:14):
the beers was really neat.
And so, working in the lab therefor a couple of years I asked
the Pearl folks to try to getinto production.
I wanted to get out of the laband get into the brewing side.
They were kind enough to sendme to the Siebel in Chicago for
brewing school in 1987 to kindof prepare me to become a
brewing supervisor and again, asyou pointed out, another

(03:36):
company that would be in myfuture.
Sam Adams was starting at aboutthe same time as I came out of
college, and Jim was putting hiswhole business plan into motion
, and so I went off to school.
The craft beer if you want tocall it a movement was really
just getting started.
And so in my 1987 Seabull classthere were a couple of guys who

(03:57):
are again sort of foundationalin craft beer A guy named Dan
Carey who built New Glarus inWisconsin and another guy named
Jamie Emerson who went on tostart Full Sail.
They were in my brewing class.
It was an interesting transitiontime from the old old line
breweries where Stroh was stillaround and Heilemann was still
around, and Midwestern largepackaging breweries that were

(04:19):
all over Cincinnati and throughthe Midwest.
They were still alive and so itwas cool.
I got my three-month degreethat was what they called it
back then Just did it all inChicago and then came back and
worked as a third shift brewingsupervisor at Pearl for about 18
months.
I kept going into my plantmanager's office and asking for
a raise and he would say no, no,no, no.

(04:40):
And so I bumped into a guy thatwas the assistant brewmaster at
Lone Star and asked him if hehad any positions open across
town at Lone Star and he said no, but send me a resume.
Very next day I actually got acall from him and said hey, how
fast can you get me that resume?
I'll drive it over Kind of longstory short.
I got hired over at Lone Starand so jumped across town to the

(05:00):
other brewery.
I went to work there as anassistant brewmaster.
I was usually on second shift.
It was kind of a move up intime, so in the afternoons from
three to 11.
Yeah, I just learned a lot moreabout brewing of things.
It's interesting Pearl and LoneStar are very, very similar,
similar brew sizes and similargross capacity.
Both could do over a millionbarrels of beer a year, kind of
flat out.

Scott (05:20):
Oh really.

Grant Wood (05:20):
Yeah, it's amazing to think of that at the time.
But, yeah, great time.
You know, work both sides ofhot side and cold side, from
making the work to fermenting itand processing it for packaging
, you know, things might've gonealong swimmingly forever.
But, as we all learn, marketforces and business forces have
a influence on everyone's lives.
And so one day my boss at LoneStar came to me and said hey,

(05:43):
you know, we did that bankruptcytwo years ago.
Well, we're going to probablydo it again, and this time it
looks like it's going to bepermanent.
You know, you might want tothink about your options after
Lone Star.
I'd been there six years.
Ken Lee great guy, I think I canmention his name yeah, he was
my boss at the time and he saidtwo things are going to happen.
One is they're going to just gointo bankruptcy and insolvency

(06:04):
and they're going to shut thisthing down, or Heilemann Group
will get purchased by somebodyand the beer will be taken
elsewhere to be brewed.
So he said, in either case,this brewery is eventually going
to close.
And then he was very open withthat and went super.
I really appreciate that,because when I was still taking
brewing magazines, I remember,you know, thumbing through that
and going oh, here's an ad theBoston Beer Company Hmm, that's

(06:26):
interesting, they're looking forbrewers.
Okay, sent a resume to Boston.
To keep the balance in theforce, I sent a resume to
California to anchor brewing.
At the same time I got a reallynice letter from anchor saying
no thanks.
But I got a call from DavidGrinnell, sam Adams who
interviewed me over the phonefor about 45 minutes to an hour
and it was kind of awkwardbecause my office mate was

(06:48):
sitting right there while thiswas all going on.
I guess David liked me enoughon the phone to offer me a
ticket to Boston.
So I flew up, got lost on theway from the airport to the Park
Plaza, drove around in northBoston for I don't know, finally
made it to the hotel and wokeup, met Fabian Rosen for
breakfast down in the Park Plaza.
I broke all the rules about howyou're supposed to interview.

(07:09):
I just read this whole bookabout how to do interviews and
you know how to bring a goodimpression.
It says don't interview overfood.
She meets me for breakfast.
Well, great, that's off the bat.
You know it's like try not todiscuss salaries at the very
beginning.
And Fabian's question was whatare your salary expectations?
That was her first question.
First question yeah, that washer lead and I was like, oh my

(07:30):
God, this is just going bad,this is going terribly.
And I'm like kind of hemmingand hawing and she's like, oh,
that's really interesting.
Oh, okay, and she asked me twomore questions and then she goes
.
She like leaves, let's go to theleft.
Oh, sorry, I forgot thepersonality inventory thing.
She slides a personalityinventory thing across the table
to me and I'm like filling itout as fast as I can.
I'm not eating.

(07:51):
Everything's over here on theplate Not getting eaten.
So I fill out the PI, hand itback to her.
She goes that's great.
Thanks, can you get a cab downto JP?
That was my introduction to theBoston Beer Company.
So I go down, have a great daywith David.
It's just the day and I've gota 4.30 flight back home and you
know we're standing out on thedeck at JP.
I'm about to get in the cab andhe goes.

(08:11):
I thought it was a really greatday, great to meet you.
Let's take a next step.
Get your wife on a plane, comeback, look around, we'll make
you a formal offer.
You think it's going to go well.
Yeah, so the rest is history.
I flew back, got off the plane.
Susan says what do you think?
I said I think we're moving toBoston is what I think she was
like.
Okay, again, to her credit,she's like Boston.

(08:31):
I grew up in the South, I grewup in Texas, and to take that
leap and to try to imagine whatit was going to be like to move
to the Northeast, to the heartof Yankee land and I mean that
in the greater sense, not theNew York sense, it was a big
leap.
And again, susan, to hergreatest credit, was ready to
jump off.

Scott (08:50):
That's great For some listeners.
The production facilities forSam Adams were not located in
Boston.
The R&D plant was located inJamaica Plain.
We call it JP.

Grant Wood (08:59):
Well, the funny thing about it was I thought
that I was interviewing B, thebrewer in Jamaica Plain.
I thought that's what theinterview was for.
And then it turns out, when Ifly back the next time, I'm in
the building and there's thisother guy over there with a new
haircut it was Jim DeBoer.
In this period of time, whenthey interviewed Jim and they
interviewed me, I think, theyflipped their decision and they

(09:21):
hired Jim to be the brewingmanager and they offered me the
production manager job, whichmeant that I was going to be
managing brewing outside ofBoston, you know, with our
contractor, our alternateproprietorship partnerships, you
know.
So, okay, and then so that myjob description changed and it
meant that another piece of mylife was going to change, where
I had significant travel to do.

Scott (09:41):
Yeah, so where were Sam Adams Contract Brewing at that
point, when you started they?

Grant Wood (09:45):
had just expanded and they were really getting
serious about the Cincinnatibrewery.
They had brewed a few thingsthere, like seasonals, like
Fezziwig, about the time that Icame in, and they had also just
opened the Genesee Brewery inRochester, so they had just
started that relationship aswell.
So when I got there they werestill brewing in Pittsburgh.

(10:05):
They were brewing in Lehighalready Okay, it was the Stroh
Brewery then and they werebrewing at Blitzweinhardt in
Portland.
And so up until 1995, as theygrew, they grew into those
various locations, they weregrowing 25% or more a year, yeah
, and so they needed morecapacity.
I think it was David andRichard had opened up Cincinnati

(10:28):
and they had opened upRochester, and so they needed
another person to cover thosetwo breweries, and that was me.

Scott (10:33):
So one of the claim to fame of yours is that you made
the Sam Adams Black Lager.
That's your baby, wasn't it?

Grant Wood (10:39):
It was.
Yeah, I love that beer.
That's one of my AmazingSchwartz beers or black lagers
are probably my favorite style.
I remember we had been workingon this recipe.
We had three different recipesthat we had tried there at the
brewery in Jamaica Plain.
I remember walking through thebrewery with David and tasting
those three.
They all had their merits.
But we came to the last tankand we tasted them and David

(11:03):
turns to me and goes which oneof these did you like?
Which one's it going to be?
And I was like this one.
This is the one.
It's just a great beer all theway around.
It's just got a ton of Munichmalt, which gives it that depth
of malt character and flavor,and that little bit of Carafa
malt about 5%.
It's unhulled, so you don't getany burnt parts, you just get
the roastiness and Noble Hopsman.
Just a great all-arounddrinking beer.

Scott (11:23):
It's a great, great beer and that is by far my favorite
black lager ever.
I mean, there's tons of themout there.
I live in Wilmington.
We've got a lot of smallbrewers out here and they try,
but no one has really knocked itout of the park and that's just
one of my favorite beers andit's such a shame that that
style has never really gottenbig in the US, because it's such
an easy drinking beer andpeople think it's just this
heavy black, burly beer.

(11:44):
Yeah.

Grant Wood (11:45):
They think of it like a stout.
That's nothing like a stout.

Scott (11:48):
So you're at Sam Adams.
I don't know if you rememberthis.
I opened for you and yourimprov troupe at a holiday party
one year.

Grant Wood (11:54):
Oh, yeah, that's right, I did bring that improv
group over.
I'd forgotten about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, Iremember you did stand upup and
uh, yeah, I'd come from doingimprov for many years while I
was in san antonio.
Uh, from like 1989 to 1995, agroup called the oxymorons.
We played at a couple differentvenues in san antonio.

(12:16):
It was just so fun, did italmost every friday night.
Uh, we had 11 o'clock show, twosets, uh, 14 improv pieces.
Such a great team, such a greatgroup of people.
We were tight.
I don't toot my own horn forperformance that much but we got
to a place that I think fewimprov groups get to.
We just knew each other wellenough that you just get subtle

(12:36):
signals about something that wasabout to happen.
You could pick it up, you know,just pick it up from each other
, pass the idea back and forth,and it was some of the best time
I've ever had on stage.
Yeah, it really was.

Scott (12:46):
It was fun watching you guys.
So then you did it in Boston.
Did they come to Boston or joinup with another group?

Grant Wood (12:51):
We were living out in the Metro West.
I lived out in Wayland and metthese folks at a little
performance venue.
They had this tiny theater theyhad down in downtown.
Natick, me and another womantried to pull together an improv
group and we did for a littlewhile we hung in, but for that
meeting there was this group.
We called it AKA and they camein, came into Boston for that

(13:12):
show.

Scott (13:12):
Yeah, that was fun.
So Sam Adams, and then you guysget this crazy idea to maybe
start your own brewery.
Is that how that worked out?
And you started Revolver.

Grant Wood (13:20):
Yeah, no, no, no it's.
So I was sitting at my desk inJamaica Plain and reading
through the morning's emails andwe would get this one from the
Brewers Association, just sortof a newsletter, kind of top of
line things, with some links.
They would run want ads or help, wanted ads and stuff like that

(13:41):
in the body of the email and Iread this one that said looking
for a brewmaster for GranberryTexas and I was like Granberry
man, that sounds really familiar, google it.
And I was like Granberry man,that sounds really familiar, you
know, google it.
And I was like oh, yeah, that'sabout.
Ok, that's about an hour fromwhere I grew up.
Yeah, that sounds interesting.
And you know, at this point I'dbeen with Boston Beer just shy
of 16 years.
The other thing that runs incycles are your own career moves

(14:05):
and your own cycle withincompanies.
Yes, susan would tell me laterthat.
She said you know, I could seeyou were kind of coming down
into this place with Boston Beer, that you would think about
leaving and I said never leave,I'm a lifer.
And she could kind of read thesigns that I was kind of peeking
out I was getting about as faras I was going to get in the

(14:25):
company.
It just took me two years torealize it.
I sent a resume to this guy.
I emailed him and then I sent aresume to this guy down here in
Granbury.
I said you know, tony, whatyou're trying to do.
Where is it?
What are you trying to do?
You know, just kind of, give meyour business plan.
He emailed me back, kind oflaid it out you know kind of
briefly, and I emailed him backand I said that sounds really
cool, I would like.
A few days later we set up aphone call, which was great.

(14:49):
He had married a woman from NewYork.
They were still living out onLong Island.
He happened to be in New York,so I met him.
I decided to drive down,interview him in person and we
went to the Ginger man inManhattan, oh yeah, and sat
there for about three hours andchatted with each other.
How do you see the Texas market?
I thought really hard aboutthis because this is like
September.
I guess I've been with BostonBeer for 16 years and it's a

(15:12):
great company.
Yeah, I love working for SamAdams.
I love working for those peopleand just make great beers, all
kinds of good stuff.
It was a really hard decision.
And again, going back to MrsWood, you know talking about
this, she goes.
You know these opportunitiesare not going to come around
very often.
Yes, these kinds of windows ordoors are just rare.

(15:33):
And the fact that I was talkingto this guy opportunity to go
back to Texas, I would getequity in the company, I would
get a piece of the action it waslike, okay, and the thing I did
, when I after negotiating withRhett a little bit his name's
Rhett Kiesler After negotiatingwith Rhett a little bit, he met
my need, which was I would takea pay cut, I got him to agree to
a two-year personal servicescontract, not related to

(15:55):
Revolver but to him personally.
He would pay me for two years,whether it worked out or not.
That plus the equity that I got, kind of put the decision over
for me.
And the other one was Susansaid do it.
You really should do this.
You know what's the, what isactually, what is the very worst
that can happen.
Yeah, it fails, you know, andRhett doesn't pay me and she

(16:17):
goes.
You've been around long enough.
People know you.
You'll get another job.
Yeah, we're not going to starve, you know you.
You do you and we'll do thistogether again and so, anyway.
So she's like all right, let's,let's do this revolver thing,

(16:37):
but does it have to be calledrevolver?
And I said, uh, it turns outhe's pretty solid on that and he
wants that branding.
I was like, well, okay.
And then it was like, who do Itell that I'm leaving?
Yeah, um, you know.
I was like, oh, this, two and ahalf months to go.
Right, it's the middle ofoctober.
Am I going to get shown thedoor when I say this?
And then I'm going to bestanding around.

Scott (16:48):
As soon as you open your mouth.

Grant Wood (16:49):
Yeah, yeah and so, but no, I ask a few of my closer
work friends how they would dothis.
You know how would you approach.
And they go, go to Jim Cook,start at the top, you know him,
work your way down, okay, and soI lurked around outside Jim's
office.
When I finally saw him goaround the corner and into his

(17:10):
office and Jim has an open doorpolicy it's very rare that that
door is closed and so because hewants people to come in and
talk to him actually andinterrupt his business, I guess,
but with good news with goodnews.
With good news.
Yeah, anyway, I go around thecorner and go into his office
and I said, jim, have you got afew minutes?
And he said, sure, have a seat.

(17:30):
I laid it out for him.
I'll do the imitation.
You can't see it because you'rejust listening.
But Jim has this habit whenhe's thinking about something,
he plays with his hair.
He puts his hand up on hisforehead, he twists his hair
around.
He goes oh, grant, you'rekilling me, you're like a

(17:52):
sequoia, how can you leave?
And I'm like oh, you know, jim,it's a hard decision, jim.
And he goes all right.
Well, he called you a Sequoia.
Yeah, he called me a Sequoia.

Scott (17:57):
Oh, that's a hearty nickname.

Grant Wood (17:58):
That's a nickname.
Well, it's a hell of acompliment.
I'm 5'7".
There's nowhere here, sequoia.
But anyway he goes.
You know I understand and Iwish you luck.
The great thing was, again Jimgot it.
They let me stay until January1st and I had driven down to
Texas to prepare for Christmas,so I had my laptop with me.
I would hold on to that and Iwould do one last email on

(18:21):
January 1st and then sendeverything back.
And I remember Dave was like Ican't believe, I'm letting you
drive away with a computer,you're just going to send it
back.
I said, dave, I'm going to sendit back.
Yeah, then I did.
My whole new life in Texasbegan, and I guess I went to
work January 4th of 2012 atRevolver in a big field that had

(18:43):
nothing in it.
Really, we had to build in.

Scott (18:45):
So you guys built from ground up?

Grant Wood (18:47):
Oh yeah, Wow, yeah, that was the kind of
mind-blowing thing about this.
For those of you who've neverworked for the Boston Beer
Company, they used to have anon-compete agreement that
everybody had to sign.
I figured it was going to takeabout a year to build this
brewery Clear the land, buildthe building, put the equipment
in, get everything set up andget going.
We worked very quickly.
We didn't break ground.

(19:07):
I think we broke ground thefirst week of March or the very
last week of February and thenthey built the building and it
was basically a 6,000 squarefoot rectangle that looked like
a large barn, kind of a chickencoop top.
It was very simple and a lot ofthe preliminary work just
leveled the ground, clear offthe garbage and get everything
out of the way and then theycould pour the slab.
You built the building.

(19:28):
The brewing equipment showed uparound the end of June.
We're doing most of the stuffourselves with like a sky track
and a forklift, picking up tanks, these 60 barrel tanks, putting
the brewery in place.
And again, it was very simple.
It wasn't a shoestring I mean,we were funded, but it was like
keep it simple.
Yeah, and that became kind of.
My mantra was we had a twovessel brew house.
We'd mash into the mash larderton, we'd transfer it over and

(19:51):
boil it, we'd whirlpool in thekettle, cool it and put it in
the tank.
It was very simple brewing veryold English UK style stuff.
Everything's manual.
There's no automation.
We got the brewery up and going.
Another adage is the first brewalways fails, and so in this
case it did too.
We ran the first brew.
The very first trial brew waslike July 31st.

(20:11):
We came back the next day and,you know, got to clean
everything up and brew it again,and that one was successful.
So first brew was really August1st of 2012.
Yeah, eight months, right.
So from actually less than that, from groundbreaking to the

(20:32):
time we're actually making beera very short period of time.
And so I was a little worriedabout my non-compete because
we're going to be selling.
We're going to be selling beerlike September.
We had this conversation aboutthat with my new partners.
Part of the old non-competeagreement said that you can't
work for a company that producesor sells beer within the United
States for a year that iswithin 20% of Samuel Adams'

(20:53):
price point at retail, and so wepriced our beer at 20.5% above
Samuel Adams' prices.
Wow, that's genius.

Scott (21:04):
Brilliant.
Well it was a risk.

Grant Wood (21:07):
I mean because there was a possibility that we would
be overpriced and that we wouldnot be able to compete because
the beer would be too expensive.
But the alternative was to golower, cut our margins terribly
and not make any money, at leastfor four months.
We made the decision to gohigher, which was again, in
retrospect, turned out to be agenius move, because we were

(21:29):
able to command the price.
It was crazy.
In fact.
You've talked to a fewsalespeople in your life, scott,
I am certain.
Oh yeah, they're nothing, ifnot confident.
Until you know their life isdifficult.
David Grinnell always said Iwould never want to be a
salesperson.
They get rejection all the time.
It's just hard.
You have to have a certainpersonality for that.
I completely get that.
The reason I'm talking aboutthat is that I had to go out and

(21:51):
sell beer Me and Rhett had togo out and sell beer.

Scott (21:54):
Again Was it just the two of you just brewing too, like
that, was it?

Grant Wood (21:57):
Yeah Well, so I had an assistant.
So I had a guy that hung out atthe brewery, andrew Shelton.
He did a lot of the stuff cleantanks, filtered beer, brewed
beer, kind of went back andforth and then he would stick
back, do the kegging and stufflike that, keep the place clean
and Rhett and I would go offwith growlers and try to sell
beer.
We were very fortunate we weremaking friends down here as fast

(22:18):
as we could.
Rhett had talked to wholesalersabout the laws here.
They're very particular in thestate of Texas.
He had had a great conversationwith some folks at one of the
distributorships around here andat the time it's a very
different world now.
They were very friendly toKraft that was growing up, I
think.
They saw the value of it andthey were excited to see Kraft
begin to take off in North Texas.

(22:38):
This one distributor gave Rhetta contact sheet.
He basically gave him a list ofall the bars and restaurants in
greater North Texas and Dallasand Fort Worth who had draft and
were interested in Kraft.
Right, these are their top 125craft accounts.
And so Rhett and I took thatlist and started working on it.
I wish I had true corroborativeevidence that we did this but
frankly no salesperson wouldbelieve me.

(23:00):
But on that first hundred callsthat we made to accounts here
in Fort Worth and Dallas to sellbeer and we're selling beer
that I had made on a smallsystem to begin with and then as
we moved into production we hadour growlers have actually
finished beer out of the brewery.
Out of the first 100 accountsthat Rhett and I called on, we
sold into 97 of them.

Scott (23:23):
Are you serious?
Yeah, that's insane.

Grant Wood (23:25):
Yeah.

Scott (23:26):
I still can't believe it.
Wow, it was amazing.

Grant Wood (23:32):
Do you think you might be in the wrong industry?
Maybe, maybe you're really goodat that.
I don't think I'm in the wrongbusiness, but I will tell you.
It was amazing, though.
We made also the decision thatwe would not just try to sell,
sell, sell, sell, sell.
We had to understand thebalance with production.
We didn't want to run out ofbeer, because that was one of
the biggest objections that wewould get from restaurateurs and
bar owners is like I'm going togive you this thing on the wall
You're going to run out of beer.
I'm like can't say we neverwill.
We'll do our best not to, andwe won't take in on any more

(23:59):
customers until we have capacityto cover them, and that was a
piece of what we did very well.
And then, you know, rhett ranback to Granbury and we started
ordering more tanks.

Scott (24:05):
Yeah, what was the first beer that you developed?
Was it Blood and Honey?

Grant Wood (24:07):
No, I wanted to.
One of the things I was wrongon is I thought that Texans
wanted a great malty golden alewhich had a little bit of hop
character, and so my lead onthis was something we called
High Brass, which was a goldenale brewed with European hops
with Saphir it was almost allSaphir with a little bit of

(24:29):
Northern Brewer, it was about 6%, it was sort of Dortmunder
strength.
But it was really a golden aleand with the dry hopping I just
thought it had a great balanceand it failed.
No one really wanted it.
Uh, blood and honey came alongafter those and then that turned
out to be the monster, so umhad to feed the monster.

Scott (24:49):
Huge.
I went down to Texas for ameeting and we hit bars that we
could get blood and honey and itwas phenomenal.
Then we just sat there for SamAdams meetings drinking blood
and honey the entire time.

Grant Wood (25:00):
That's right.
I remember you guys came down.

Scott (25:02):
So how did that one come about?
Because that was pretty muchthe horse that pulled the wagon,
absolutely.

Grant Wood (25:07):
Yeah, the uh, the blood and Honey origin story is
just super fun.
Again, it's in March orsomething like that of 2012,.
Like early March, and we had aguy from down the road from us
show up with a bucket like afive gallon bucket and Mr Crisp
had this you pick at the timedown the road from us peaches

(25:28):
and strawberries and stuff, andbecause of that he had bees just
to make sure that everythingwould get pollinated.
He came into the brewery oneday so I hear y'all building a
brewery?
Yep, he goes, would y'all usehoney?
I was like sure, yeah, you know, yeah, let's see it.
He cracks this bucket of honeyopen and it's a beautiful
reddish color.
It looks like strawberry coloror almost like a very dark ripe

(25:49):
strawberry and smells fruityfrom all the peach nectar and
all the strawberry nectar.
It was just beautiful.
And so I get a little stick outand I'm eating it and it just
tastes fantastic.
It's so fruity and just great.
And he gave it to us.
I mean five gallons, seriousamount of honey and it
crystallized.
That's the reason why he'sgiving it away.
He couldn't sell it.
I thought about a brew to putunder this honey.

(26:11):
You know, wheat ales come tomind.
Honey wheat made sense Againfrom a lot of the things I'd
learned from my time at SamAdams.
I felt like it can't just behoney, it's going to need
something else.
And we sort of had an idea, youknow, from wit beers frankly
from Belgian wits, where, whereyou have this spice and a citrus
.
Because of the color of thehoney, I think I gravitated to

(26:32):
blood oranges.
It just looked like cut up ablood orange and that's what it
looks like.
It was fortunately again bloodorange season, so I was able to
get some blood oranges, get thezest off of them, thought of
another couple of spices to goin the beer, kind of a warm
pumpkin spice almost, but thosesort of warm fall spices you

(26:52):
know, made this brew and I wastrying to think of what to call
it and I thought, well, bloodoranges and honey.
I'll just call it project bloodand honey and I write it on my
board.
One day Rhett comes in and helooks you know he's looking at
the projects that I'm doing andhe points at the blood and honey
.
He goes what is that?
What's blood and honey?
And I said, well, you know,remember, you know Mr Crisp's
honey that he brought in.
I made a beer with it with someblood oranges, and so I'm

(27:15):
calling it blood and honey andRhett goes.
That is a stupid name that'snever going to sell Never.
So I just like kind of jabbingwith Rhett occasionally if we're
in public together.
That's the one thing he waswrong about.
He's right about everything else, but we get to ding him on that
.
And so, yeah, so Blood andHoney was born and it was
interesting because, you know, Itaste it, I really like it.
I give some to Rhett, he reallylikes it.

(27:36):
You know he's happy and on thisone occasion his wife was
hanging out in the office.
She'd come by for something andI asked Jen.
I said, hey, jen, you want totaste this new beer, blood and
Honey?
And she said, oh, you know, I'mnot a beer drinker and I'm like
I know good.
And so she tasted it.
She goes that's really good, Icould drink that.
That was kind of the firstlittle inkling that we might

(27:57):
have something here is thatpeople that were not normally
beer drinkers would gravitate toit because of the fruitiness
and that very mild honey notethat we ended up with, you know,
and also the fact that it was 7ABV.
It was not an insignificantamount of alcohol inside of that
beer.
We had a couple of festivalsthat we were doing even before
we opened.
The one that I remember inparticular was the North Texas

(28:19):
Beer Festival.
It was in May of 2012.
And again, I'm brewing on afive-gallon system, so this is
like just a step up fromhomebrew really, and processing
the beers, getting themcarbonated, getting them right,
and our kind of debut was thisNorth Texas Beer Festival in
Irving.
So we had this rudimentarysetup.
We had stickers, we had maybe acouple of hats, I don't even

(28:40):
know I guess May.
We barely got anything exceptbeer.
And so in this case we hadbrought Blood and Honey, we had
a Bach, we had High Brass, I hada preliminary beer that I
called Sidewinder.
I think I just called it.
I can't remember what I calledit.
Anyway, it was a agave limebeer with cumin in it.

(29:00):
We called it Sidewindereventually.
And then I had a porter.
We go to the festival, we'repouring beers and everybody's in
the building man, I mean, it'srun by a wholesaler or there's
wholesaler involvement.
So there's international beers,there's beers from everywhere.
You know Sam Adams was there.
We're pouring our beers and wewalk around the building and we
have the longest lines, we havethe most persistent lines and

(29:21):
people would get a beer, drinkit, go back to the other line,
come back, get the next one.
They ran their way through allof them.
Wow, towards the end of thisevent, there's a beer blogger
named Scooter Hendon that wasblogging about craft beer at the
time and he came up with avideographer and they're kind of
videoing people and doing thispromotional bit.
They came up to me and asked meif I would talk on camera.

(29:43):
I was like yeah, okay.
And he said we had this bloodand honey and we've talked to a
whole bunch of people in theline and this is the best beer
in the building.
We love this Blood and Honeyand we talked to a whole bunch
of people in the line and thisis the best beer in the building
.
We love this Really, yeah, yeah.
And I was like dang, okay, well, thank you, thank you for the
approval, and so that was kindof the first indication that we
thought that that particularbeer might have legs.
It's awesome.
Yeah, we go to the Taste ofDallas in July.

(30:06):
Again, blood and Honey was abig favorite, weirdly followed
by the stout that I finally had,which we called Mother's Little
Fracker, and it was another bigfavorite.
With that in mind, we had tonarrow down to three beers for
our launch, and so we kept theblonde, the high brass.
We made a Bach, six and a halfpercent Bach, a lot of Munich

(30:28):
malt, and then Blood and Honey,and again.
So Rhett and I went out into theworld, starting in September.
We sold our very first kegSeptember 1st of 2012 and then
started going out into the worldselling beer and people just
wanted it, wanted it back, alldraft, and again at the time.
It's the very beginning, really, of the true craft beer move
making itself seen in Dallas andFort Worth.

(30:50):
And so we were the fifth, Ithink, to open.
I guess it depends on how youcount them, but at that time
there was RAR in Fort Worth,franconia up in McKinney, deep
Ellum had opened oh, okay, yeah,deep Ellum had opened,
petacolis had opened, and thenit was either I think it was
Lakewood and then us, so maybewe were sixth.

(31:11):
What ended up was reallyinteresting and would be a cool
market study if somebody woulddo it.
So, with the introduction,franconia, they struggled, they
were undercapitalized and theywere selling their beer too
inexpensively and they were justmaking German stuff which I
don't think people were reallycatching on to.
Rahr was here.
They had been here for abouteight years.
They were struggling.
Their number one beer, I think,at the time was a black lager

(31:33):
called Ugly Pug and again, it'sa great beer but people trying
to get their heads arounddrinking something dark.
And then when Deep Ellum showedup they kind of blew the whole
thing wide open.
John Reardon, he nailed it.
The marketing very brash, veryDallas kind of the bad boy.
They rode that to the bank.
You know, dallas Blonde waskind of the blonde ale that you

(31:54):
had to have Really.
And so they got their spot onthe wall with Dallas Blonde.
They had some IPAs and stufflike that, but Blonde was their
kind of their main driver.
Yeah, michael Petikolis comesalong.
He makes this strong red ale,9abv called Velvet Hammer.
Yeah, strong red ale, nine ABVcalled Velvet Hammer.

(32:15):
That was their beer.
That got them on the walls.
Very different, the Lakewoodguys they made Temptress a stout
, kind of a sweet stout, so thatwas the local stout.
They got on on the wall.
And then we came along withBlood and Honey, and we had the
wheat ale a little stronger withspices and we got our spot on
the wall.
And so then it was kind of likenow the rest of you guys are
coming in Good luck.
And so there was a veryinteresting time.

(32:37):
I will again never forget thatmoment when we knocked a Sam
Adams tap down which was downhere in Granbury.
They had Oktoberfest on at theHofbrau Steakhouse down here,
and when we were making thedelivery, rolling some blood and
honey in, on the whiteboard byit it said no more Sam

(32:58):
Oktoberfest, blood and honey, inbig letters.
That's wild.
And I was like hmm, it's a fullcircle moment.
Yeah, yeah, I was like oh, man,okay.

Scott (33:10):
So when I was doing research on blood and honey, I
Goog.
I was like, oh man, okay.
So when I was doing research onBlood and Honey, I googled
Revolver in quotes, and thenBlood and Honey in quotes, and
what popped up was not beer andI don't know if this copyright
infringement issues, but whatpopped up was a Winnie the Pooh
movie about murder.
Are you familiar with this?

Grant Wood (33:29):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I've never seen itbecause I don't really, but
someone sent that to me.
I was like, oh my God, that'sgoing to be, yeah, with Pooh and
Piglet out doing murder, yeah.

Scott (33:42):
Hatchet style murders and I was like what the hell is
this?
So I started scrolling.
It has a sequel.
Yeah, Blood and Honey.
So I got something to dotonight I'm going to watch some
Winnie the Pooh murder scenes.

Grant Wood (33:53):
Some slasher horror, oh man.

Scott (33:56):
And I guess Pooh and Piglet are badasses too.
I guess they really do chopsome people up.
Yeah, let me know how it goes.
I'll post a review on Facebook.
So you do so well.
And then all the big guys startacquiring small regional
crapperies, and Revolver becomesone of them.
How?

Grant Wood (34:14):
did that come about?
Yeah, it was kind of crazy, andagain kind of comes back to Sam
and Jim Cook, kind of.
So it's 2015.
We've launched.
We're still in liftoff mode.
We're doubling our volumesalmost on a yearly basis, wow.
So from the time we started in2012 to fall of 15, we're

(34:34):
creeping up on 20,000 barrels ayear.
Wow, in about three years.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I still can't believe it.
Building the brewery, puttingmore tanks in, we're expanding
capacity as fast as we can.
We've launched in bottle.
We're kind of out in the marketand so things are going great.
Just, we're one of the fastestgrowing breweries in Texas, if

(34:56):
not the United States.
Yeah, definitely.
We've been going to the GreatAmerican Beer Festival, so this
will be our third year.
I'm judging that year and I getan email from Jim Cook, really
Kind of out of the blue.
He goes are you in Denver?
And I'm like, yes, yes, how canI help?
He says have you got time tomeet?
And I'm like, absolutely, youtell me where and when and I

(35:19):
will be there.
Sam used to do the rare beertasting that was done outside of
the hall and Jim was at that.
He was slinging Utopias, and sohe takes a break.
We go outside and he says to meyou know, I hear your brewery
is doing really well.
And I'm like, yes, sir, it isThanks.
And he said has anybody talkedto you about acquiring you?
Have you thought about sellingyour brewery?

(35:39):
And I guess I kind of steppedback.
I was like no, frankly, I'vebeen trying to figure out how to
make more beer, build a brewery.
I hadn't really, we haven'ttalked about that.
And he goes wow, okay, well,you might think about it, you
might shop yourself or you know,just be open to the fact,
because he said the big boys arehunting.
You be open to the fact.

(36:00):
Because you said the big boysare hunting.
You know they're buying littlebreweries and a little like
right after this discussion,carbock would announce that they
were being acquired by abi.
I go to rat and I said, hey, Ijust had this conversation with
jim cook and he's like was hemaking us an offer?
And I did ask jim.
I said is this?
Yeah, what are you talkingabout?
Are you?
And again, the thing with thehair, he goes no, grant, uh, I
can't afford you.

(36:21):
And I was like what you can'tafford us, that's.
I was like okay, calculationsin my head how the hell do you?
Well, it's, it's really hard tovalue a growing brewery like
that or a growing business likethat, because you know what's
the future earnings.
Yeah, so I go back and talk torhett and I'm like, what do you
think he goes?

(36:41):
Well, I guess you know, let's,we can try to talk to somebody
and put together, uh, you know,just to be ready, and I'm like,
okay, yeah, and so we're at thebooth, we're at this is 2015,
we're at the booth, um, and theway we usually had it set up is
red, or I was was behind thetable.
We're pouring beer and RonnieRhett's dad would be just

(37:02):
trolling the aisle in front ofour booth and he would snag
people and drag them over to thebooth and make them taste our
beer.
He's sort of a relentless oldman.
Grabs this one guy and he dragshim over to our booth and says
you should taste the beer.
And that guy was DickLeinenkugel, really Just
randomly.
Yeah, and Scott Whitley was intow with him and he was the head

(37:26):
of mergers and acquisitions for10th and Blake, the arm of
Miller Coors.
He goes oh yeah, we've beenlooking for you guys Really.
Yeah, you want to talk andwe'll come down to Granbury if
you want to talk about maybe apartnership or you know it's
coming together and Rhett's likesure, come on down.
You know, and they did so inNovember of 2015,.
We met.

(37:46):
I had our first meeting with theM&A group and, in typical Rhett
fashion, rhett is a really,really smart guy.
I respect and admire him agreat deal.
I like him a lot.
He's a relentless negotiator.
Warning to the world don't gointo negotiations with Rhett
Kiesler because he will drag youdown.

(38:07):
You know, like just bears down,keep shaking until you give up.
Seriously, he negotiated withthem for months and in fact,
walked away from the deal once,and then they came back and then
finally we came to an agreement.
And so almost a year later thiswas September of 2016, finally
came to an agreement and signedthe deal for Miller Coors to

(38:31):
acquire Revolver.
Yeah, so I think it was likeSeptember 9th somewhere around
there of 2016 when we made theannouncement and kind of began
that three-year process.
It was a three-year deal.
There's an equity payout at thebeginning, which kind of
relieves all the externalinvestors.
And then Rhett and Ryan and Iheld on for another at least
three years while we kind ofgrew the business, and so

(38:53):
there'll be a three-year at theend of business payout based on
volume of sales.
Wow, wow.

Scott (38:58):
And then you retire and you start traveling the world.

Grant Wood (39:01):
Well, the whole retirement piece.
I don't know if you remember,but since the deal closed out at
the end of 2019, kind of gothrough the paperwork, kind of
finish off the agreement andeverything was paid out to Rhett
and Ronnie and I around the 1stof March of 2020.
Remember March of 2020?

Scott (39:20):
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Grant Wood (39:22):
With the discussions with Miller Coors, we decided
to stop the brewery tour on likethe second weekend or the first
or second weekend of March.
It was like we were a weekearly because then everything
shut down the following week.
Yeah, it was the big thing thatcame out from the federal
government and said you reallyshouldn't be open if you don't
have to be and keep minimalstaff and stuff like that and

(39:44):
there was a whole essentialworkers thing Anyway.
So I worked a lot from home.
I would go to the brewery onceor twice a week, stayed away
through that whole summer andthen finally, towards July, my
assistant brewmaster transferredout.
He went up to Milwaukee and Ihad to go back in the brewery.
So I took back over theday-to-day operation around July

(40:06):
of 2020 and then went in searchof a new VP of ops or head
brewer and eventually found it,but it took a while Completely
separately.
Rhett and I decided to go aheadand depart.
They hired in a new GM orpresident of Revolver.
Rhett left in September.
We finally found a guy to takeover for me who we hired in

(40:30):
mid-October, and then I retired.
I'm going to put that in quotes.
So I left Revolver around mybirthday right before
Thanksgiving in November of 2020.
Retired sort of.

Scott (40:43):
So then you're just hanging out, chilling out, and
then randomly you get a callabout some non-alcohol beer.
Is that what happened?

Grant Wood (40:51):
Well, there's a three-year gap in there where I
did some traveling and did someconsulting with New Zealand Hops
and a local brewery here, wildAcre and Bishop Cider.
The guy that owns Bishop Ciderbought up a couple breweries
here and then consolidated themall in Fort Worth and so I
helped him a little bit withthat kind of consulted on that.

(41:13):
I got a call November of lastyear November of 23, from a guy
named Gary Moore who I hadworked with.
Gary had been the brewingmanager at the Lehigh Brewery
for us and he left and has donea couple of other things since
then.
But he had gotten a call fromthis guy who wants to start a
non-alcoholic beer company andhe goes.

(41:35):
I can't do it right now.
I'm in the middle of this thingand I really can't feel like I
can leave.
He goes.
I can't do it right now.
I'm in the middle of this thingand I really can't feel like I
can leave.
He goes.
But when he was asking for abrewer and somebody that could
formulate, I thought of you Iknow you're retired, but do you
want to talk to him?
I'm like sure I'll talk to him.
So I got a call from a guy namedJohn Herman.
He had been CEO at Nutribolt C4Energy and had helped expand
that business exponentially andhad left at that time, two years

(41:58):
ago, and was looking for hisnext opportunity.
He got approached by a venturecapital company in New York who
had partnered with, at that time, an unnamed to us celebrity to
create a non-alcoholic beerbrand.
So they hired John, skilledoperator and CEO, and he went
around looking for people.

(42:18):
So he called Gary, really, Ithink, through a LinkedIn search
, and then Gary passed him to me.
I talked to John.
He told me what they werewanting to do.
This is something that I'dwanted to do.
I'd wanted to make a non-app.
It's interesting to think aboutthis because in 2018, we had
already been acquired by MillerCoors.
I'd gone to Craft BrewersConference but I went into a

(42:41):
seminar that was talking abouttrends in brewing, what's the
future look like, what'sgenerating interest globally and
et cetera.
And even this 2018, this wastalking a lot about
non-alcoholic beer, how this guyfelt it was the wave of the
future.
I turned to my friend, jeffCornell, who was sitting next to
me at the time, and said hey,what do you think of this?

(43:01):
And he's like I agreecompletely.
And I said me too.
I think this is a great growthopportunity.
People want something like thisthat's craft, tastes like beer.
If they can, they can go kindof moderate with this If they're
drinking back and forth.
You know, we we we were justgenerating all these ideas about
it and we talked to people inmanagement and Miller Coors

(43:24):
where we could, and no one wasinterested in this at the time
2018, and that group was anon-starter.
It was all about seltzer.
Well, I guess I won't get to dothat, you know, okay.
And then when John calls up andsays, hey, have you done this?
And I said, kind of, I did alittle trial stuff over at Wild
Acre, tried a couple oftechniques, but there's really
no interest there.
Got an idea how to do it, loveto try.

(43:44):
And he's like, well, Iunderstand, you're retired, do
you want to consult?
And I said, well, I'd go backto work full time.
You know, just make me an offer.
He did.
I did.
You know, again, with thewife's permission, always ask
permission.

Scott (43:58):
Well, she seems to know what she's talking about most of
the time, so yeah, she does.

Grant Wood (44:05):
Yeah, just a great sounding board and she's again.
She's like I know you want todo this and I know you're bored,
why not do it?
Yeah, you're 60.
So there's no good reason toretire.

Scott (44:11):
Yeah.

Grant Wood (44:11):
Yeah, so I jumped in .
Didn't know who the celebritywas.
It was Tom Holland.

Scott (44:15):
You did know.

Grant Wood (44:15):
Yeah, I did know, and it was like okay, you know,
they have capital, they've gotthis guy.
They've got this guy'sgirlfriend, who's even more
famous than him.
Yeah, the smart John Herman,really smart guy, why not make a
run at it?
Yeah, and so we did.

Scott (44:31):
And then Bureau Brewing was created.

Grant Wood (44:34):
Yeah and uh, and I got to see it was that.
To me it was also an education.
Um, I'd never really.
I mean, we built the brandrevolver, obviously, but red had
, like fully formed ideas.
He was the guy you know.
He had a vision.
He was able to execute that.
Yeah, this is a little different, where you've got Tom, who has
his own ideas and the way hesees things and his own ideas

(44:55):
about design, and then John,who's been in the consumer
product business for a long time.
He's got ideas about how thingsare supposed to work, and me
I've got my own ideas.
And so the kind of interestingthing is about how, using
resources, using other companiesthat do marketing and brand
creation, and watching some ofthem work and how they ideate

(45:16):
and they created the ideas forthese brands and from colors and
imagery and icons and all thatkind of thing, and to kind of
watch that all come together.
That's, you know, beer brewingis easy in comparison to that
sort of stuff, that trying tomold all these ideas to bring
them together and make everybodylike them, you know, and get to

(45:39):
agree on the way that a brandethos is supposed to be launched
from the get-go, and so youknow there were we looked at a
couple of different concepts, soI think there were four kind of
final concepts that themanagement team worked through
and they they picked Bureau uh,for good reason, I mean, it's
it's simple word, it rhymes withother cool things.
Uh, we took some elements fromsome of the other branding and

(46:02):
probably kind of brought thatinto Bureau and fleshed it out.
But yeah, watching thatcreative process was really cool
and I think you made the rightdecision.

Scott (46:10):
Yeah, it's interesting, I've never, you know, we've been
in the beer industry for, youknow, 20 plus years, both of us
plus years, both of us, youobviously far longer I've never
seen a launch of any beer asmeticulously done, just so well
done, and granted, a lot of thecompanies don't have a celebrity
spokesperson right off the bat,but I mean just from every TV

(46:31):
show that it's been on GoodMorning America and Seth and
Jimmy Fallon, and you've gottento be part of that.
How crazy has that been for you?

Grant Wood (46:39):
Yeah, it was madness , yeah, and again you nailed it.
Jackie Widman, who's our VP ofmarketing, just crushed it
Absolutely, in coordination withour PR teams, tom's people, the
Bureau people, the ImaginaryVentures people just felt
seamless and just hit all thehigh notes.
We've gotten a lot ofcompliments from people you know
, industry veterans who've seenyou know that was the smoothest,

(47:01):
coolest, most powerful launchthey'd ever seen.
And I have to agree, I've seena few at the Sam Adams days and
this was just like you know,just overwhelming almost.

Scott (47:12):
So for the folks out there that aren't really
familiar with it and I'm not100% familiar with the process
either either, how do you make anon-alcoholic beer?

Grant Wood (47:19):
yeah, we'll get to get in the technical weeds a
little bit, um.
And so when you look at makingnon-alcoholics, there's three
different ways, I think.
Okay, one way is to and this isthe oldest way, frankly is to
take a standard beer, whateverstrength it is, and you run it
through something called avacuum still okay and it boils
the beer under.
A vacuum reduces the pressureon the beer, so it'll boil at a

(47:42):
much lower temperature, like,instead of 212 degrees maybe 72
degrees Fahrenheit.
What that does is it boils thebeer, the alcohol and some water
vaporizes off and that getscollected in a receiver and then
the stuff that's left behindthe sugars, proteins, all that
sort of stuff is then collectedand then diluted back and

(48:03):
carbonated.
So the alcohol is removedthrough the use of heat.
You can dilute that back,carbonate it, add things and
it'll make a non-alcoholic beerCool.
That's one way, um.
The other way is to run itthrough something called a
molecular filter, um, where yourun it through the super duper
fine filter that lets onlymolecules, tiny molecules,

(48:25):
through, like water and alcohol.
The water and alcohol passthrough the membrane, the
retentate, the beer is heldbehind and again the same
thought collect that and thenyou can, uh, dilute it,
carbonate it, add hop flavorsand, uh, you've created a
non-alcoholic beer.
And those are the ways to getto zero, zero.
Okay, right, that's yourreducing all the way down.

(48:45):
And the other way, which is theway that we chose, is to use a
yeast and to brew at a weakerwort level, like a low sugar
level, and then you ferment thewort with this special yeast.
It's called a maltose negativeyeast and it only makes a little
bit of alcohol, and so you makeabout 0.5% or just under, and

(49:09):
it runs like regular beer.
It's a much quickerfermentation.
You don't have to age it verylong, and so you do a
fermentation cool the tank,clarify, make your ads carbonate
, dilute if you need to.
To make sure that you're legal,you're staying under 0.5%
alcohol by volume and you'regood to go.
And we chose that way, themaltose negative yeast, and it

(49:32):
does a great job.
And what I really like about itis you're not applying all this
force to the beer in the formof sheer forces or in.
Even the application ofmoderate heat can do things to
beer.
Yeah, boiling it off, you'restripping a lot of the essences
and characters of thefermentation.
Um, there are ways to put themback, but I didn't feel like it
was the optimal way yeah it's away, and in some ways it's a

(49:54):
good way, but for what we'redoing to try to get those
flavors, the delicate pieces ofof that, to stick around, I
thought it was important that wego this sort of simpler way.
And the other thing thatbenefits, that is, I can make it
in any brewery.
I don't need a specializedpiece of equipment to make it
happen.
Fortunately, my idea seems tohave worked.
Beers I really like them.

(50:16):
I'm very happy with theformulations that we've achieved
.
A little nod to Tom Holland.
He knew what he wanted andwould taste critically and has
learned a lot about beer andbeer making, and he's kind of
embraced that too, and he'ssuper happy with the beers.
My job is to make beers thatpeople want to drink.
It's not to make beers for me,though I do like to drink beer,

(50:40):
but the goal is to make beerthat people are going to want to
drink.
A lot of people are going towant to drink.

Scott (50:43):
Yes, yes, um, just so everyone probably should know.
But tom holland, known forplaying the character spider-man
peter parker in the marvelcinematic universe, I do have
one question about that.
Okay, um, I don't know.
If you can answer, maybe youcan guide me.
Is there any way that he wouldlet me be in a marvel movie?
I could play any character.

Grant Wood (51:04):
There's a long line of people in front of you I
think I could play like the blob.

Scott (51:09):
He's like a character, he's like big fat guy.
I think I could play the bigfat guy if you need a big fat
guy uh, no well, I'm sure wecould find something more
creative than that okay, I canget down to weight too, like
whatever.
Whatever it takes, yeah, no, heseems like such a great.
I've watched the interview thathe did with Jimmy Fallon on the
tonight show.
I watched the one with SethMeyers.
Uh, seems to get great guysreally invested in this and, uh,

(51:31):
invested in non-alcoholic, youknow, as a lifestyle in general,
which is great for him too.

Grant Wood (51:34):
Yeah, and the you know he has his own sobriety
journey and, uh, it's genuineand legitimate.
He's a man under a ton ofpressure.
You know um as a public figure,as a celebrity.
I think he realized that, uh,you know, drinking was not
working for him and that's agreat choice for him, yeah.
But the other thing is hedoesn't he's not judgy about the

(51:54):
whole thing.
He's like this is me.
I want to make beer for me andfor people like me, and also for
people that are not like me,like this guy, grant Wood.
I still enjoy beer, I still havea glass of wine, I might have a
cocktail, and the really coolthing about Biro is that it
switches back and forthseamlessly.

(52:15):
If you're just enjoying theevening and maybe you're at a
place where you feel like Idon't want to get any more tipsy
, I don't want to have thateffect Crack open a bureau.
Or maybe it's a school night,you're watching Monday night
football and you've got to workon Tuesday.
You want to drink some beersand eat snacks and watch
football.
It's perfect, because then youwake up the next morning.

(52:37):
It's like man, I had fourbureaus, I am fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it'sjust another option for people
that are out there having a goodtime, and what I try to say is
it's beer, yeah, beer thatdoesn't have a lot of alcohol in
it, but it's still beer, yeahso you're producing now um your
contract brewing, I believe.

Scott (52:58):
Is there plans to plans to build a brick and mortar, or
is that too far down the road?

Grant Wood (53:01):
That's a ways down the road.
Jim Cook proved this model.
We're going to embrace that forquite a while.
I do think at some points therewill be a thing sort of like
the Jamaica Plain Brewery wherethere is a brewery, it's done
primarily for research anddevelopment.
There'll be a tap room.
That is within the realm ofpossibility, I think.

(53:22):
I think the real question wouldbe where would you put it?
Yeah, we launched nationwide.
I'm sure that there'll be again, kind of in the way things
launch is they tend to launch inthe big cities where there's
concentrations of people.
And so we, you know, welaunched in New York.
You know, could it be in NewYork, I guess.
Could it be in California?

(53:44):
Yes, who knows?
I just that is a ways into thefuture, but not out of the realm
of possibility.

Scott (53:50):
It's nationally launched, or is it just in select markets
still?

Grant Wood (53:53):
If you have access to the internet and your state
laws allow you to shipnon-alcoholic beer to your house
, then it's available.
Oh okay, all right.
Yeah, there are a few stateswhere that's not legal.
I'm not sure which ones.
I think Georgia is one of them.
Yeah, if states are open forreceiving, then you can order it
Okay.
It doesn't fall into thethree-tier system, then you

(54:14):
could probably do it like sodaessentially, yeah, you could, so
we can stand outside thethree-tier system again, because
it's not alcohol, okay, and youknow we're going direct to
consumer now.
But we want to be indistribution.
We want to have distributionpartners.
We've got a guy named declanwho is our vp of uh sales and

(54:35):
distribution and is rapidly, asfast as he can bringing
distributors on board so we canbe in market.
We can be on premise, you know,as well as off premise.

Scott (54:48):
Yeah, if it's anything like anything else you've done,
it's got to be amazing.
I'm not just blowing smoke upyour ass.
You're seriously one of thebest brewers probably in the
country.
Thanks, kyle.
I've had tons and tons of yourbeers, as my waistline shows.

Grant Wood (55:04):
Well, yeah, man, I'm not the skinny dude I used to
be, Unfortunately none of us are.

Scott (55:09):
None of us are, grant.
This has been awesome.
Thank you so much and I wishyou the best of luck, the best
of success with Bureau.
It's such a great concept.
Really looking forward totrying it and seeing it out
there and seeing your mug on theTV shows all the time.
That's very cool too andcontinued success with Bureau
and with Tom and everything.
Congratulations again.

Grant Wood (55:29):
Thank you so much, Scott.
It's been a blast catching up.
Take care.

Scott (55:32):
Yeah, it absolutely has.
All right, take care of myfriend.

Grant Wood (55:35):
I didn't even tell you the whole story about moving
to Boston and not seeing hernaked for six months so much
snow.
Is ridiculous, oh Lord, um yeah.