Episode 59 - w/ Ray Ricky Rivera of Norwalk Brew House - The Taproom Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.

(00:26):
All right, and we're back. This is episode 59 of the Taproom Podcast,
and I am your host, Mike. Have a good one today.
I had Ray Ricky Rivera on as a guest. He is the owner and founder of Norwalk Brewhouse.
He does contract brewing through Eagle Rock and another brewery.

(00:47):
But like I said, we get into that in the episodes. I don't want to give away too much.
But yeah, Honestly, a really nice guy, and we had a really good, fun conversation.
Yeah, so stay tuned for the interview. Also, before we do get started,
I do want to say thank you to Pocket Chug.
They sent me, it's the most compact beer bomb, so it comes in a little baggie.

(01:08):
The tubes and everything like that, so I'm going to be making a video soon.
It's been raining like crazy out here in Southern California.
So, haven't had a chance to use it just yet, but I will probably be doing that
today if it clears up. and we're making a little something for them.
Also make sure you guys go follow Geeks Who Drink.
They hold trivia nights. So they do trivia nights all across the country.

(01:32):
They have different, obviously, people in different states where they host different
events like that or different trivia events at breweries.
And they actually have one every week at Campsite Brewing over in Covina.
So definitely give them a follow. We may have something coming up with them, so we'll see.
All right, but yeah. Yeah, so I do have a brewski here, a bitty, bitty blonde blonde.

(01:53):
This one is one of the ones that Ray Ricker Rivera does his contract brew with.
So here we go. It's cracker opening.
All right. Sorry. Dog was getting a little antsy, so I had to,
you know. Oh, yeah. Gotta love that sound.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I don't know why I'm singing that song.

(02:14):
All right. Cheers to you, Pat.
I don't have a glass to pour this in right now. I'm actually in the garage.
I'm recording this, but let's jump on in.
Oh, yeah, some good stuff. I mean, I definitely like it. It's a really easy
drinking, you know, blonde ale.
And, you know, I definitely would suggest that it's got like,
you know, they can actually I want to talk.
I won't talk about the cannot work because the cannot work we actually talk

(02:36):
about on the episode. So I'm just going to jump into some headlines.
So this week we did have there's some more show. Hey, stuff coming out. Not really sure.
I mean, things are just getting kind of crazy. I feel like there's like multiple,
obviously, you know, stories going on. and I feel like the story keeps changing or had kept changing.

(02:57):
So, I mean, we'll kind of see how it plays out, but, I mean,
things just don't really add up based on some of the stuff that's been said
or that was initially said and what's being said now.
So, I don't know. We'll see. Also, baseball is back, baby.
It's one of the best times of the year. It's also, we're leading into WrestleMania week.
Can life get better? I submit that it cannot. It's good stuff.

(03:21):
Good stuff. So I'm excited for baseball. My Bravo's right now are 2-0.
Obviously, Dodgers playing well. I'm going to do a full baseball preview and
WrestleMania next week.
That'll be on the outro. Don't want to take anything away from the Hamilton interview next week.
Also, I went to go record at Frogtown yesterday with Jonathan and Josh.
So the head brewer and the assistant brewer, really great guys.

(03:43):
And, you know, shout out to Art, LA Brew Life. He was there with us.
But, yeah, it was just an absolute blast. Really great beer.
They're like a hop, a skip and a jump away from daughter stadium.
So if you're going to a game, definitely check them out before or after that really good stuff.
And they always have food trucks and stuff like that there as well.
All right. Also did a little poll this week. I'm on Instagram.

(04:05):
I should have that, should have had that pulled up already, but when am I ever prepared? Right.
All right. So I asked what your, what people's favorite styles are of beer.
So I had West Coast, Pilsners, Hazies, and Stouts as the options.
33% of the vote, West Coast IPA. 26% of the vote, Pilsners and Lagers.

(04:26):
28% of the vote hazies and a 13% of the vote was for stouts.
So I thought maybe hazies would be a little higher, but I mean,
it wasn't that far off. It was only 5% difference.
But thanks to everyone that votes, you know, and answers questions and stuff like that.
Abraham did ask me a question. I actually had quite a few, but I haven't had

(04:48):
a chance to get through all of them. So I'm going to actually do that next week.
But I will answer one question that Abraham from La Bodega asked.
He said, how shitty were you at Slops Fest? And that was when I recorded with
the boys on Tall Boy Sunday.
I actually felt okay at the end of the night. But mid-show and a little after
the show, I was like, after the tequila shots and all that stuff, I was like, oh, shit.

(05:11):
Yeah, but I was feeling pretty good. Let's see. What else do I got?
Oh, so I got to go see Nadav.
Yes, I got to go see Nadav off yesterday.
He's heading out, finally heading out to Israel. wheel. So I got to go hang
out with him and have a few beers, got to meet his wife.
You know, I actually got to, I got to meet Tony bags from there doesn't exist,
you know, and a few other people, stuff like that.

(05:32):
It was, and actually some of the people from ambitious ales syncopated.
So it might be, you know, it was, it was a fun night to hang out in the dog,
but, you know, got to make some connections there as well.
Also at the end of the episode on the outro, I did get some people to say a
few words to say goodbye to Nadav.
So stay tuned for that. and adav if you're listening man oh you know i'll save

(05:53):
that i'll save my part for the end but all right i hope you guys enjoy the interview
and stay tuned for the outro.
All right, guys, and we're back. And I have a very special guest on today.
I have Ricky Ray Rivera from Norwalk Brewhouse, founder of Norwalk Brewhouse.
What's going on, brother?
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for making the drive.

(06:14):
Oh, of course. Yeah, good thing. Not too far. So I didn't know if it was easy for me.
And I'm glad we finally got to do this. I remember I reached out to you.
It was like, I don't know, it was like back in like September,
October last year. I think so. Yeah.
Yeah. But I know you were busy. I was busy, but I'm glad we finally got to get together.
Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Excited. Yeah. Just glad to have you on.
So we have one of your beers here, one of your, well, one of your flagships,

(06:35):
right? So you have, we have Lomano is your flagship.
And then the other one is Bidi Bidi Blonde Blonde, which is awesome.
Right. So Bidi Bidi Blonde Blonde is our flagship. It's the first beer we brought to market.
Okay. It's a light blonde ale. It's single hopped with mandarina Bavaria.
Okay. 5% ABV. So it's an easy drinking beer. Nice and smooth.
Nice. Well, I'm going to crack it open, but I definitely will.

(06:55):
So we'll start off because I love them.
One thing I was able to ask for is like, you know, like your craft beer journey,
man. And like, what was it like? Like, how did you get started?
How did I get started in like the beer industry or just craft beer in general?
Oh, your entire, the whole thing.
Well, I have this early memory. It didn't necessarily kick off my craft beer journey.
Okay. But I was about 21. I got invited to a party.

(07:18):
Can't remember who invited me, but I just remember being at this party.
I didn't know anybody. And some guy was like, Hey, you want a beer?
There's some beer in that tub. He points to a tub. I walk over.
I stick my hand in the tub and i pull out sierra nevada pale ale and i had never had,
sierra nevada pale ale before yeah crack it

(07:39):
open i take a swig and my face like melts like yeah like at that i couldn't
handle it like yeah it was just too much for my palate okay and i just remember
thinking like oh my god this beer is horrible like what is this and that's like
my my earliest memory of craft beer. Yeah.
A few years later, I started hanging out at a place called, I don't think it's

(08:01):
there anymore, but it's called, it was called.
Wylands restaurant in downtown like
you know you know that i've heard of it yeah so they they
used to have a bunch of craft beer there and they used to have
well at the time they called it their house beer and i i i didn't know any better
but i was drinking their beer they had like a blonde amber and it was delicious

(08:22):
i think maybe a lager so i used to drink that beer later i came to find out
come to find out it was contract brewed one of them was contract brewed by firestone okay Okay.
Won by an Anaheim brewery called like Jayhawk or something. I don't think it's around anymore.
But anyway, that beer at that place really kind of got me into craft beer and

(08:44):
just thinking like, what else is out there, you know?
And yeah, that spot was really cool. They had a pretty nice menu,
Belgians and all kinds of stuff.
And that's when I started to get a little bit more curious about like craft
beer. And this is probably like early, mid 2000s.
Okay. And then, uh, fast forward 2014, I started homebrewing,

(09:05):
got a one gallon homebrew kit, started brewing on the stove top in my kitchen. Okay.
And I just went down that whole rabbit hole of homebrewing and started brewing whatever I could.
And then the following year, I helped co-found the SoCal Cerveceros Homebrew Club.
Awesome. And then once that happened, that's really where like my journey into the beer game starts.

(09:29):
Because it's through the Homebrew Club is where I start to meet everybody I know now.
Whether it's like homebrewers or head brewers or brewery owners.
And so, yeah. So I would say it really starts for me in 2015 when the SoCal Cerveceros starts.
Yeah. And could you tell us about the, for the listeners, like what the SoCal
Sobiceros are and like what the, you know, see what they do for the Hispanic

(09:51):
community and stuff like that?
Yeah, for sure. So the way it started is, so I'm homebrewing,
but I don't know anybody.
One, literally one day I was like telling my wife, hey, I think I'm going to buy a homebrew kit.
And she's like, a what? You know? And I was online and in that moment I was
just like, I'm just going to order this homebrew kit right now because if I

(10:11):
don't do it now, I'm not going to do it.
Yeah. And I did it. And that's pretty much how I started because I was thinking
about it for a while and I just finally pulled the trigger.
Okay. At that, around that same time, I also read the book by Sam Calagione, Bring Up a Business.
And it's basically chronicles the history and the story of Dogfish Head and how he started.
Yeah. So it was like reading that book and simultaneously already thinking about

(10:36):
the process of beer and how it's made that, that led me to buying that homebrew kit.
So I, I buy the kit. I go online and for any, and any, anybody listening,
who's a home brewer, who's done this, they, they, they know you go online and
you go into these forums and it's just overwhelming. Oh, I bet.
Yeah. You just like, you could ask the simplest question. You got a hundred

(10:57):
brewers giving you a hundred answers and everybody's right.
And so I was like, man, I would really benefit from meeting somebody face to face, you know?
So I went to Facebook. I was like, hey, anybody homebrew here?
And one guy responded. Okay. And I didn't even know we were friends.
Turns out he's part of a group called Brujeria, sorry. Nice.

(11:21):
Maybe you can edit that out. That's okay.
And we hook up, we start talking, and ultimately that leads to us deciding,
hey, let's start this homebrew club.
And we start meeting at their headquarters, which is a house in Hacienda Heights.
Okay. And where they homebrew. And the guys from that, that group,

(11:42):
like they had been homebrewing for like several years already,
so they really knew their stuff.
Yeah. So they started, you know, I started learning from them basically,
and bouncing ideas and questions off of them.
And we one day had a conversation like, Hey, there's gotta be other Latinos
out there that are homebrewers as well. Yeah.
And so we started to put the word out and sure enough, there were,

(12:03):
and we started as seven people in a backyard.
Yeah. Just sharing homebrew, sharing tips. and then
that led to like over 200 people throughout the
years yeah so that's the soca set of
aceros in a nutshell yeah but basically soca set
of soca set of aceros went on to be the largest latino-based

(12:24):
homebrew club in the country this is like
around 2018 okay there was like no other club like
it today it's super diverse you
know it's not just latinos there's a a mix of people yeah
and it's pretty much just open to anybody looking to
become a better home brewer looking to learn about
the hobby and what socal service settles also has become is sort of like a springboard

(12:48):
many of us have gone from the club to commercial so there's like almost probably
15 of us now from 2015 to now who is who have either opened up a brewery start a contract brewing.
Or whatever, we, we made the leap from hobby to pro.
Yeah. So that, that's been really fun and great to see.

(13:09):
That's awesome. And was it Augie or Adrian that you. Oh, so Augie.
So Augie is the one that reached out to me. Sorry. I forgot.
That's okay. So Augie reached out.
So he and I have been tight since 2015, but it was Augie, his brother,
Adrian, their friend, Adrian Gonzalez, who is still part of the brewery.
And I believe it was a cousin of theirs. and they were like the group.

(13:32):
That was homebrewing at that time. And from day one, when I met them,
they were like, we're going to open up a brewery one day. And that was always a plan.
So for me, knowing them as homebrewers and watching them go through that process,
it's been awesome to see.
Cause now, you know, I don't know if you heard, but they're expanding to Chula Vista.
Yeah. That's awesome. So now like they got the brewery open,

(13:54):
they've been open for a few years and now they're expanding and it's been amazing
to see. So yeah, pretty proud of those guys.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and how cool is that? I mean, you guys get to,
you know, have a group like that, or, you know, you guys create a group like
that to be able to, you know, bounce off ideas off of each other and,
you know, and cause you know, it's like you were saying, sometimes you go into
those forums and I've heard this, I guess I feel like that's like a tale as old as time.

(14:16):
Because like people would like, they would, you know, read like going all these different things.
It was obviously pre YouTube, like before YouTube got real big,
but I know now you can go on YouTube and find different things,
but same thing on YouTube, you'll find different ways to do things is a different,
you know, they said there's a hundred people saying it a hundred different things, but, um,
it's awesome that like, you know, you guys got to, got to start that.

(14:36):
I mean, and it is so big now.
I mean, and we have a mutual friend, uh, Anthony Tapia from Amarok too, as well.
Yep. Yep. Shout out to Amarok. Anthony, what's up? Yeah, man.
And I just, I just love like hearing that, like, cause I mean,
sometimes, you know, people are afraid to kind of take that risk or,
you know, to, to try to, you know, jump into something like that.
And when you have a good support system, like the Sebaseros,

(14:59):
and now there's the Sebaseras and stuff like that, too. You know, like...
The, the, probably the biggest hurdle is like the, the information, right? Yeah.
And that's one thing that's really great about the beer industry is that there's
a lot of people willing to share tips or, you know, information,
like how to do things. Yeah.
From, in my, in my experience, like I was sitting there one day,

(15:23):
like, oh yeah, I'm dreaming like everybody, every other home brewer,
like I want to open up a brewery. Yeah.
But like, how do you do that? You know, like, how do you get financing to do that?
What's the first step? Like, how do you go from, I want to open up a brewery to opening up a brewery?
And so there's a lot of, you can go online and get information,
but again, that's also overwhelming.

(15:44):
It's so much more helpful to preferably see somebody in front of you,
do it step-by-step and then relay that information to you.
And now with the Solcao Cerveceros, there's several of us that have done that.
So just earlier today, I had one of the members from SEC asking me about contract brewing. Yeah.
Like, hey, how much does it cost to get your license? And what type of license do you have?

(16:10):
And I was there texting him step by step. And that's something I find myself
doing often. Like people will DM me, people will email me.
I was emailing somebody that I met online who's in Sacramento,
Open Impa Brewery. I was asking him questions like two days ago.
And so that's a big part of this whole process is getting the information.

(16:31):
And if you have the information, sharing the information.
And that's one thing that I love about Soca Caceraceros.
Is that there's so many knowledgeable people. You can go to the homebrew club
to get information on the commercial industry, how to work with a distributor,
how to become a distributor, how to start a brew, like where to start.
Or you can go to the club and just learn how to brew better beer.

(16:55):
It just so happens that there was quite a few of us that wanted to go from homebrew to professional.
Yeah. So now, yeah. Yeah. So, so if you're out there listening and you have,
you know, the slightest interest, whether it be a home brewer or a commercial
brewer or exist in that world, go to SoCal Cerveceros, hang out and start talking to people.

(17:16):
That's awesome, man. And I love that. And, you know, just trying your biddy
biddy bum on light, refreshing fire, dude. That's, that's really good.
I'm glad you like it yeah you know straight ahead beer nothing fancy just as
for all the my cousins who you know I'm trying to get them away from those macros
that they're hooked on you know trying this yeah
and it's always I always kind of felt like too with like the Hispanic community.

(17:40):
Like sometimes it is tough like because I have uncles and I
have you know and you know family that are just like oh no I'm going
to drink my Modelo or no I'm going to drink my Coors Light and they get kind
of stuck on that but then sometimes they find something like this
or like you know La Mano or something like that and they feel like
what is this right yeah where do i find this
and then they kind of you know they find their we talked about earlier they find their gateway
yeah in the craft beer you know like there's i i will not judge or knock anybody

(18:06):
who loves a macro beer whether it's bud weiser bud light modelo corona whatever
you you know to to each their own it's more about like letting people know like
there's other options out there oh for sure because that's a big part Right.
Like at least the people that I know have been drinking Modelo for decades or Bud Light, whatever.
It's because that's all they know. They were never turned on to any alternative.

(18:29):
And now beer is so expansive.
There's so many options out there.
It's like, right, you have fruited beers, you have Belgian beers,
you have like high ABV beers.
Yeah. There's so many things to choose from. I think people would benefit from,
you know, trying different things. Oh, definitely.
And for you, because I know you mentioned contract brewing, because that is what you do.

(18:52):
How did that all come about for you? Was it like, you know, obviously talking
to like Augie and all them or how did it all come about? Wow. Really?
Again, I had the dream opening up a establishment in Norwalk.
Actually, what, where it really started was I wanted to open up a bar and grill with live music.

(19:13):
And the idea that I had was this bar and grill was going to serve California craft beer only.
And so I was like, Like, well, if I'm serious about going into this kind of
business, I should know all there is to know about craft beer. Yeah.
And so then that led to me picking up that book, brewing up a business,

(19:34):
buying the homebrew kit.
So that's the full story there. Okay. So that was the initial idea.
Yeah. And then as I go deeper down this rabbit hole of homebrewing with the
Solcao Cerveceros, and I'm talking to Agui and Adrian and Brujeria about their
dreams of opening up a brewery, my idea starts to morph a little bit.
Like oh maybe maybe i don't want to open up a barn grill maybe

(19:54):
i want to open up a brew pub yeah yeah i'll do
that yeah yeah cool let's go and then as i start to
get more information do more research i quickly realized like whoa
this takes a lot of money yeah and i don't have a lot of money i don't even
have a little bit of money you know i was like wow how am i gonna do that yeah
so i just started trying to figure out ways to come to market like if i really

(20:18):
if my dream is to be in the beer industry,
what are my options and what are some of the avenues I can take?
Then I learned that, well, I don't know.
Boston beer company, right? Samuel Adams, the makers of Samuel Adams,
they started in the eighties as a contract brewing company.
Oh, wow. So they didn't even own a brewery for a really long time.

(20:39):
I don't even think that to, to, to this day, they own a brewery in Boston.
I don't think there's a brewery that they own in Boston.
Yeah. I don't know. And so, so I also read that book. What is it?
Oh, Jim Cook's book. Yeah. Jim Cook's book.
I read that one later, but, but the point being is there was a template for
this route. Like it, it, it exists.

(21:02):
Like you can, you don't have to own a brewery to have a brand and distribute.
Yeah. And so I just started to do research and talk to some people and I learned
about contract brewing and I learned that in order to be a contract brewer.
So basically when you're a con you're not, you're technically not a contract brewer.

(21:23):
The brewery that produces the product is the contract
brewer yeah so i i
have recipes i go to an existing brewery
i say hey make my blonde and here's the recipe they brew it with their staff
they package it i take the package store it here in our warehouse and then i
sell and self-distribute okay that's called contract brewing yeah so i learned

(21:49):
that in order to to do contract brewing brewing,
you have to first become a beer wholesaler.
Okay. Well, how do I do that? You have to get a permit from the federal government, the TTB.
Then you have to get a license from the state of California that allows you to distribute beer.
As a beer wholesaler, you're allowed to not only distribute your own brand of

(22:13):
beer, but you can distribute for any beer supplier.
So I can work with, and we do sometimes work with other local breweries.
So I can technically a straight up beer wholesaler.
Okay. It's just, I have my brand and the way I get my brand to market, I contract brew.
Yeah. So I'm basically buying what they call a finished beer.
So when I ask a burrito to brew my product, when they're brewing it.

(22:39):
Yeah. It's their beer technically as, as, as the law states, it's their beer.
It's my beer once I take it off of the premises.
Got it. So that's how all that works. And I just, you know, asked a lot of questions,
talked to a lot of people, learned about contract brewing.
And I, once I dug into it and.

(23:01):
And figured out like it was a lot less expensive to, to get in that way.
Yeah. I said, all right, let's go.
That's awesome. So what I, what I actually did was I partnered with another
SoCal Cervicero member whose brand is Los Barbones. Okay.
And so we went in as a partnership 50-50 and we created SEC Distribution Network.

(23:25):
Nice. So SEC Distribution Network is the beer wholesaler or the distributor. Okay.
And essentially what we do is we license our own brands to ourselves,
so our distributor, so that we're allowed to distribute our own products.
That's awesome, man. That makes sense.
I mean, that's cool though. I mean, you get to, cause I mean,

(23:47):
like you said, you can still like, if like, you know, like to,
if you needed to do anything else, like you could do like to just the wholesaling
part, but obviously what you're making right now is killer.
Killer and I was just looking at the the can artwork too obviously the Selena
reference and all that stuff but this is so so good yeah I was really happy
with the can art so we I found a graphic designer,

(24:09):
Adriana so at little.drea yeah little.drea on Instagram.
Adriana Mendoza is her name. And she was doing some label work for,
I believe they're called Concrete Jungle up in the valley. Oh, I've heard of them.
Yeah. I think I want to say like the Oxnard area. She's from Oxnard. Okay.

(24:31):
And anyway, I, I came, I think I came across her artwork on Instagram,
but I know one of the brewers from Concrete and they're friends with her.
Somehow we got, we got connected that way. Like, yeah. Yeah.
And I saw her artwork and I thought she was great. So I reached out and said,
Hey, I have this idea, bringing this beer to market.
You want to, you know, design, design for it. And she did.

(24:53):
And we went through a couple of rounds of, of designs.
The first design she sent me was, there was a lot of pink and then there was a lot of purple.
Okay. And so I was like, I love the idea of putting this woman on,
on the can and she's got tattoos.
Twos, but I was like, but I want a design that not only attracts women drinkers,

(25:18):
but also men will, will be, you know, attracted to it.
Yeah. You know, I felt like if it was all pink, I think it may turn off some,
some male drinkers, you know? So I was, I was like, let's try to get something
in the middle that can appeal to both men and women.
Yeah. And I think she, she killed it. Oh yeah. No, it's awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, with, with our designers, so we, so far we've only

(25:42):
worked with women designers.
The other design for La Mano and our other releases have been done by Blanca
Molina, who I met when we did a collaboration with Hen House.
Blanca Molina's from, it's like central California, I think.
It's a, yeah, not quite north, northern California, but you know, north, north of LA.

(26:03):
Yeah. And she's amazing. She does great work. Yeah.
And part of the reason why I like working with women designers specifically
is because we don't really see that too much in the industry.
Oh, definitely not. There's a lot of dudes out there, right?
Oh, yeah. You know a few. I know a few.
Men are always reaching out. Hey, love your can design if you ever need design.

(26:25):
And I'm always getting like DMs and emails. And that's cool.
But I feel like this is our little part.
This is us doing our little part to help the lack of diversity,
if you will. Oh, for sure. at least in this part of the industry, right?
We're trying to make, we're trying to bring a little bit of diversity in all aspects of what we do.

(26:46):
Oh yeah, I mean, and that's awesome because even on the brewing side,
I feel like, you know, females are underutilized. I mean, I feel like it's growing.
Obviously it's a lot bigger than, you know, than what it was.
And obviously I think pink boots kind of changed that a lot,
which is obviously awesome.
But yeah, for the counter artwork too, I mean, I don't, I mean,
I don't know any like real females that do counter artwork for breweries and
stuff like that. So, I mean, I think that's, that's pretty freaking cool that you did that.

(27:09):
Yeah. And it's something I hope that we can stick with.
I mean, these two designers specifically, I I'm, I'm a fan of,
I love their, their work.
They do a lot of work, like not just with us, but with, with other, other things.
Blanca specifically does a lot of can design. Okay.
She's worked with like wine companies and various products.

(27:30):
So she's a, she's like a super pro she knows. And that's the other thing with
working with Blanca specifically is like.
Going to her, I can say like, Hey, this is what I'm thinking.
And she can knock it out pretty quickly.
Yeah. And she understands like, okay, he has a product. It's going to go on shelves.
So she, she goes in with that mindset. Like she, she knows that world.

(27:50):
So it's been a, it's been such a pleasure working with her.
And yeah, the, the, but the, the, the bitty bitty blonde blonde,
that one will forever hold a special place in my heart just because it's the first one, you know?
Yeah, of course. And it's, it's a, it's a crazy experience to like,
so the beer started out as, as a homebrew recipe. Yeah.
And so there was no real like can design.

(28:13):
You know, I was, I was serving the beer from kegs at homebrew events with the, with the homebrew club.
And so there was never like a need to design a can or anything.
So there was, there was no artwork.
It was just a name, Bidi Bidi Blonde Blonde and a recipe. Sometimes I'd add
strawberry or peaches or just be the straight up regular blonde,
like non-fruited, but it never had art.

(28:35):
Like it didn't have a, a feel or a, or a look, you know? Yeah.
There was no image there. Yeah.
So when, when she, when she created this design, I was just like, my mind was blown.
Like, wow, now the beer has like an image, you know, it's got, it's a brand.
And if you take a look at the artwork and sorry, listeners, you can't see this.

(28:55):
That's okay. You're going to have to go find the beer. Yeah.
Or check us out on Instagram.
There's a woman on the front of the label. She has big flowing gold,
golden locks of hair. She has these tattoos.
What does that say? Five, six, two. So yeah, you'll see she's got a five,
six, two tattoo, which represents the area code that we're in here in Norwalk.

(29:15):
It's also, what is it? A long beach. Yeah. Pico.
There you go. So that, that has a lot of significance there.
You'll also see there's an scc tattoo oh yeah
there it is yeah that was important for me that's awesome just
to rep the club and just to give a little nod like these
are the roots you know we come from socal service settles yeah and

(29:37):
and then there's other things right there there's the hop
so the the 562 and the scc scc
tats those were my idea like okay we gotta have
those there yeah but the rest were the designer's idea
so there's a there's a hop comb there i think there's
like a the cross right yep there's a cross right there and
then there's a rose on the other side the the

(29:58):
first version of that design there
was a bunch of tattoos yeah and it looked cool but
i was like they gotta mean something you know let's give them a little bit of
six significance yeah and so that's how we end up with the 562 and the scc yeah
and how cool is that because i mean those tattoos mean so much to you but to

(30:18):
the average person they might not know yeah right yeah so So that's like, that's for you.
And then they, you know, but people, it may be, may make people wonder like,
Hey, what does this mean? Right.
I mean, I think that's really cool. And one thing I do love is on the back where
it says, make good beer, do good things.
Yeah, that's our brand model. That's kind of what we live by.
And it's just kind of my own philosophy.

(30:41):
When I decided to make my move into the industry, I just thought to myself,
like, really, the world doesn't need another beer company.
There's thousands of, you know, great beer companies, great beer,
great brands out there to choose from. So if I'm going to come to market,
if I'm going to get in this space, like what am I going to bring to the table?

(31:02):
And I think this was influenced by some of my friends doing collaborations with
breweries in support of nonprofits.
Nonprofits yeah and so prior to launching bitty bitty
blonde blonde i had worked on 10 beer collaborations that
supported local nonprofits oh nice

(31:22):
in doing that work i just realized like
okay this could be my lane i could leverage this beer brand to give back to
the community yeah to to try and do good you know not not just create a beer
product for the sake of of creating a beer product yeah that's kind of boring
as well like another beer brand okay,

(31:44):
and and the other side of that is you know
we we touch a little bit on the lack of diversity and and
that this is nothing new right like yeah we've been taught we like in the industry
been talking about how beer lacks diversity and has been lacking diversity diversity
for decades so that's also part of why I wanted to come to market with these particular.

(32:10):
Because if you look at them, I think it's pretty clear. You can tell,
okay, this is a Latino brand, specifically Mexican American.
Latinas are designing these cans.
And I feel like that's all important. Oh, of course. And so last year,
getting back to the make good beer, do good thing model, last year we partnered with Brenda Villa,

(32:31):
who is the most decorated athlete in the world for women's water polo.
That's awesome. She's from Commerce.
We created the Agua de Oro. We partnered with her and with some of the SoCal cerveceras.
Shout out to uh tyler tyler sadler
out there who uh just won a a brewing
award for her beer over at shadow oh it's just shadow grove shadow grove brewery

(32:56):
yep uh up in the valley right yep they just won yeah through the brewer's cup
that's right yeah i'm like what's the cult anyway so shout out to uh tyler she
she worked on the collaboration with brenda via which we released East last year.
And we put out this beer and Brenda Villa has a foundation that teaches kids water safety.

(33:17):
Brenda Villa's thing is, is bringing water sports and education around water
safety and water sports to kids and families in underserved communities.
Yeah. So, you know, I don't know where you grew up, but I grew up in the hood
and nobody in my hood played water polo.
Most people I know don't even know how to swim. Yeah.

(33:39):
And so the Brenda Villa foundation does work to, to help that cause.
And so we put out this beer with the intention to support their efforts.
And so long-term that beer, which is also a Mexican style lager,
excuse me, will be part of our core offering. Okay. And, and at.

(33:59):
Guess yearly we'll donate proceeds from the
beer sales that's awesome to help the foundation so that's
just you know one of the ways we try to
live our motto of make good beer do good things sorry that
was a long wind no not at all i mean i love hearing that because i mean it's
it's you know it's really easy to be an asshole in this world nowadays but when

(34:21):
you could go out there and you could do good and you want to do good things
like i mean that's like what's better I mean, you know, look,
the truth is that sounds great.
And to say, I could say that all day. The hard part is really being about it,
you know, not just saying it, but yeah, following through and really doing the
work that you claim to be doing and that you say you're going to do.

(34:44):
And so I just try to live that and really try to stick to that and follow through.
And if I say we're going to do something, then, then we do it.
It's not always easy, you know, cause when you're running a business,
it's, it's very, it's great to want to support causes and organizations. Yeah.
But the fact of the matter is you're running a business and bills need to be

(35:06):
paid and, you know, and that's hard. And especially right now. Yeah.
So I forgot my train of thought. Yeah. Yeah. So make a beer, do good things.
And even not, not just like giving money to nonprofits, but doing whatever you can do.
Make the world better, you know? Yeah. Whatever it is, whatever it is.

(35:27):
Even for your community and like what you guys like, you know,
have done with the Soca Cervicettos, like even that, I mean like doing something
like that, that's a, that's a great freaking thing, man.
And like being able to do, you know, do stuff like that.
And there's something for Brenda Villa, like that whole thing with Brenda Villa,
like you're, you're doing it.
And, and I, cause I know sometimes it's hard, like, you know,
like, you know, trying to get through life and, you know, times are tough. Right.

(35:50):
But if you can, you know, sometimes it's, you know, it's like putting your money
where where your mouth is and stuff like that, but we are willing to follow
through and do all these sort of things.
So, man, like I commend you for doing that because not a lot of people can.
Well, thank you. You know, we try, we try and, and, you know,
Norwalk Brewhouse, the brand is still very young. You know, we launched January, 2022.
So in my eyes, we're still at the very beginning of whatever this is going to

(36:13):
become. So we have a long way to go, you know?
And so, yeah, so I look forward to helping the Brenda Villa Foundation long-term.
Brenda the person you know she's a mother
she's a wife she's a coach she's awesome
her whole family like her brothers are coaches as
well like they're like a whole family of water polo athletes

(36:35):
yeah and when i heard i didn't know about
her prior to us doing the collaboration
i didn't really know know about her and i
was it was 2021 march
2021 and i was doing some posts for
to to celebrate women's month

(36:56):
okay oh yeah women's yeah international women's international women's month
yeah and so i was finding a lot specifically latinas to highlight in these posts
and i came I came across Brenda and I was like, wait, Brenda Via, who is this?
And then, and you know, I'm like reading some articles and stuff like,

(37:16):
she's from commerce. Like I grew up in East LA, I don't know who this is.
And we're like the same age, Brenda and I. Oh wow.
Then I keep reading and like, you know, she has a gold medal,
silver, bronze. She's like, she went to Stanford. Like she has a degree.
She has championships at the college level, international gold medals. And like on and on and on.

(37:37):
She's in the hall of fame or the water polo hall of fame.
And I'm like, how do I not know who this person is?
Like you tell somebody Michael Phelps. Yeah. Everybody knows who that is. Right. Yeah.
And it just got the wheels turning. And I was just like, why is that?
Why literally the most decorated woman for water polo in the world, literally.

(38:01):
And we don't know who she is in East LA. Yeah. Why?
And so that really bugged me, you know? Yeah. And I think, you know,
that a lot of that has to do with one, well, she's a, she's a woman and we don't
celebrate women like we do men.
I, you know. Yeah. When it comes to sports or anything like that.
Like a Michael Phelps, right? Yeah. Yeah.
The other part is probably because she is a Latina, she is Mexican American

(38:24):
and Mexican Americans just, they don't get highlighted in that way,
you know, or at that level.
Like, and this is somebody who is, is, has performed at the highest level in
that sport on the world stage.
Like it's still, it boggles my mind. That's crazy.

(38:47):
Because even we, so we did the collab, you know, we did some press around it.
My friends and people that are close to me were also learning about Brenda Villa
for the first time, you know, and it's just shocking to me. That's crazy.
So telling her story or helping to highlight her story is also in line with

(39:09):
make good beer, do good things.
You know, let's celebrate women, women like Brenda Villa.
And all the other Brindavias out there that nobody knows about who are hardworking,
who are excelling in their field, who are champions, who are coaches and teachers
and mothers and et cetera, on and on.

(39:29):
So yeah, I forgot why I went on this tangent. Oh, it's okay.
You're good, man. That ties back into make a beer, do good things.
And that's what this brand is about. yeah this brand is
about expressing who we are
in these can designs letting people know that we
are latino we are mexican american we can

(39:50):
make good beer we like good beer yeah and you
know just trying to portray culture in a positive honest way that's awesome
man and especially like i mean to go up to talk about the lomano a little bit
like obviously i love that can the first time i I saw it was at Louie's Liquor
over in Azusa. So shout out to Lucy.

(40:11):
I saw it there and i was like man like what like that one because cannot
work is obviously super important sure because you need to you know there's so
much only so much shelf space and but
like when you have something like like you know with these two like in the mono
like that just pops and i thought forever and i was like you know what i think
because i have like you know part hispanic but i have like you know i played
grew up playing loteria yeah yeah and you know and like i never thought i'd

(40:35):
ever see that on a can and when i saw it i was like oh man that's That's why,
because I want to say I saw it, it was sometime last year and I think I posted
a picture, but then yeah, you and I talked in September,
but then I really thought I was like, dude, I think I have some Loteria cards.
So I thought I did, but I didn't. So I borrowed some from my buddy and I was
able to get that picture.
But man, like it's such cool cannot work. Could you tell, like,

(40:56):
would you describe it to the listeners, even though they probably seen it on
my Instagram too though? Yeah.
So if you play Loteria, this is La Mano, which it's the hand showing the palm of the hand.
It's at the card in the original game. It's actually called the hand of the criminal.
Oh. Oh, and so, uh, yeah, you, you see the, the sleeve there,

(41:20):
I guess this, this particular criminal was wearing a suit. Yeah.
So it's, it's La Mano in the car. The background is like a light blue,
but our can is like a bright yellow and you've got the Loteria logo right on top of the can.
And you get the hops and all around the side and everything.
Yeah. That's all Blanca Molina.

(41:41):
She did a great job. Uh, yeah. Like you said, you know, labels super important.
And when we went into this, we, we were like, okay.
Okay, so let me back up for a second. Yeah. So we got approached by the game company.
Oh, really? Yeah, by a guy named Ron Ledwin out in Orange County. What's up, Ron?

(42:03):
Shout out to Ron. So Ron works with Loteria. He's kind of like their brand agent,
if you will. So he sent me an email.
And to tell you the truth, I thought it was like spam. Oh, really?
Someone's trying to like, you know, someone's trying to, going to try and extort
money from me or something.
Yeah. Yeah. And he also, he reaches out and says, Hey, you know,
would you be interested in doing some kind of collaboration with us?

(42:25):
And I was like, what? No way.
So anyhow, so we, he calls and we get on the phone and sure enough,
it's legit. It's the actual company.
They're, they're headquartered in the families from Mexico.
So the family is based in Mexico, but they have headquarters in Texas.
Okay. And he's kind of like their California guy. He was, he's a guy out here. Gotcha.

(42:46):
And he, he just said, look, I've been following the brand. I love what you're about.
I love all the collaborations you've been doing. I think it's great.
I think we could create something really cool.
We've been wanting to get into craft beer. We tried to do some stuff with a
couple of local breweries. It just didn't work out. Yeah. Would you be interested?
And so I was like, heck yeah. You know, for us, for me, that's big.

(43:11):
Of course. I was just, you know, super flattered that Ron even knew about Norwalk
Brewhouse and was well aware of the previous collaborations.
Like that was super cool.
So I was like, okay, Ron, Ron's a cool dude. Cause he knows what's up.
Yeah. He knows that he knows what's going on. Yeah.
But he was, he was also, he also made the point to let us know,
like, look, Loteria is a globally recognized brand.

(43:33):
Yeah. It's over a hundred years old.
We could go anywhere we want. We could partner with Budweiser.
We could partner with Modelo. Like there are options for this brand because they're so iconic.
Of course. But they prefer to go with somebody smaller, somebody who's tied
in to, I guess, just that somebody that's doing work that's important or that they feel is important.

(43:56):
Somebody that has a brand that, that speaks to the people directly.
So they were like, we could go with the bigger company, but we don't want fans
of Loteria to see this as like a, like we're trying to, you know,
do a quick money grab. Yeah.
So, so they, they wanted to take their time. They wanted to do something very meaningful, I guess.

(44:17):
So anyhow, so, you know, it was, it was the first time doing this.
So what we did was a, what's called a brand license deal.
So we have an exclusive brand license with Loteria.
So literally Norwalk Brewery is the only beer company in all of the United States
with the rights to sell and distribute Loteria branded beer. Okay.

(44:38):
And it's the first time that they do anything like this. So they tried to work
with some other local breweries.
Right before the pandemic. So as they tried to get that off the ground,
the pandemic happened and, you know, a lot of businesses took hits and weren't able to operate.
So it fell through. It didn't really pan out. So Loteria went back to the drawing
board and was trying to figure out who to work with. They landed on us.

(45:02):
And so we, we licensed the, the, the artwork or the, the name,
all of, so I have access to every single card in the game. Awesome.
So step one was to like, okay, well, what do we use?
It was almost like too many options.
There's a shit ton of cards. There's a shit ton of cards. It was like too much.
So I have a small team, right? Blanca's part of that team.

(45:26):
Okay. My buddy Carlos, aka Big Brown Dad. Okay. Check him out on Instagram.
Nice. He does, he tells jokes. Oh, I'm down now.
No, he's, so Carlos is on board. Carlos also has a background in music and film
and TV. He's a writer, producer.
He has tons of skills. Oh, wow. And so he's always been super,
super supportive of the brand and what I'm doing.

(45:47):
He had his own little coffee label for the last couple of years.
He recently shut it down.
So he's, he's a guy that comes with a lot of skills. He's super creative.
And, um, so I, I brought him on board. I was like, if I'm going to do this Loteria
thing, I'm, I can't do it on my own. Like it's, it's big and I don't want to fumble.
Oh yeah, I get it. So I brought Carlos on, he was game and Carlos and I were

(46:11):
just brainstorming like, okay, look, we have all of these cards. How do we narrow it down?
So the first thing we did was like, let's not go with something super obvious.
You know, people were like, oh, you got to do the card with the drunk guy on it. Yeah.
And I was like, that's super obvious. But more, more than that is I don't want

(46:31):
to put a drunk man on the beer can.
I don't want to advocate for that, that kind of, you know, that kind of vibe.
So no, we're never going to do the drunk dude.
So we started looking at la mano and
we started to say okay how how
do we frame this differently right yeah

(46:52):
like looking at it through our lens what does
la mano what does it mean for us of course and
so we started to think like well
what's the hand doing the hand is up okay what if
the hand is being raised and what if
it's us raising the hand and we're like hey
we're next yeah oh we as

(47:14):
a damn cool we as in latinos we as a mexican americans
we as in the people that haven't been represented in craft beer this whole time
we as the consumer that has been overlooked for decades right because nobody
has been trying to reach us now they know right they meaning the greater beer industry,

(47:35):
now they know that we have mega buying power and there's like a billion of us out here, right?
In LA alone, there's like 5 million of us.
Yeah. Like 2,000 of them are my cousins, right?
And so, we just, we're trying to do our part to re-
Reframe la mano because it's

(47:56):
not the hand of the criminal in our eyes right yeah it's it's
raising the hand and saying we got next and so we
started to think about it in that terms through that lens like yeah that
works for us that's pretty awesome and just looking
at the can like the hand it just it stands
out you know yeah you said you saw it in the store right just pops
jumps off the shelf shelf and that's also really the

(48:18):
other part of it is like what card can we
utilize to put on a can that's going to pop
off the shelf oh of course and so we landed on la mano yeah and if you look
at the back of the can yeah i was just going to bring that up too i love what
it says so that's all carlos right there that's carlos yeah for everyone let's
see i says and i put it on the instagram post too but it's use your hand to

(48:41):
do the work that turns the world right side up yep Yep.
So the, again, the, the hand raising the hand saying we're next,
but also our hand, we use our hands to put in work. Right. Oh yeah.
And when you think of Latinos, we're hard workers.
They'll do anything for work. That's right. You know, you got street vendors

(49:02):
selling flowers, holding up flowers in their hands. Oranges,
all that stuff. Oranges.
So that's the significance for us is, is our hands, you know, our hands do work.
Our hands are doing work and you too use your hands to do work you know do good
work whether that's making good beer doing good things you know yeah lifting

(49:22):
your lifting your hand up to pick someone up too that's right yep yep that all
ties in so so doing this loteria project.
We're you know it's real easy we could have just taken the card slap it on the
label and put it out as is you know but that was we were sure that we didn't
want to do that we felt like that was was lazy,
there's a ton of products out there with, with these, this artwork on it, right?

(49:46):
You can go get a sticker, you can go get a cup, you can get a shirt,
a bag, and it just has the game card on there as is. Yeah.
And so we wanted to, to push the envelope a little bit.
And as you look at the can, like you look at it and you, it's still,
you can still recognize that it's Loteria. Oh, for sure. It's not like crazy, you know? Yeah.
But our, our, our spin on it is everything you see around the card.

(50:10):
The hops and those little red flares or whatever they are.
I'm really excited about the next one that's coming. Oh. And we're going to announce it soon. Okay.
So everybody listening, you're just going to have to go to our Instagram.
Okay. At Norwalk Brew House to see what it is.
Again, it's another card that's not...

(50:32):
Guess not one of the most popular okay because there are some that
are popular of course you see everywhere it's one
that's not the most popular but it holds a lot of significance
and the way we we basically
redid the artwork it's freaking cool that's
awesome yeah you're gonna have to go to instagram so whenever
this i don't know when this will be out this will be out in three weeks

(50:54):
okay no actually no two weeks from sunday okay yeah so after you hear this go
to to instagram and check out the artwork oh so it's going to be up by then
it should be yes awesome okay uh one thing i want to tell you too because i
got because let me see hearing your story behind that story like you know behind
like you know what that hand meant to you when i took that photo,
nobody really none of my friends really got it because i you know obviously

(51:16):
did like an out of focus shot but just mainly focusing on the can but there
were specific cards that i used when i did it i obviously i put the mano in
there because of you know the beer but i also put el catin like like the guy
that's just about fancy after my dad. Yeah.
Yeah. Because my dad grew up, woke up every morning, throwing a suit and went to work.
Nice. And then I put the, used a native American on there because that's,

(51:36):
you know, mostly native American.
So I put that in there. And then I also put the, oh, there's one more.
Oh, the El Borracho because I just, you know, for me, for the show. Yeah.
That's you. That's you. So I was like, I had to, I wanted to do something,
but none of my, I thought maybe like a couple of my buddies might get it, but nobody did.
Yeah. But there was just a little story behind that post. Yeah,

(51:57):
no, I appreciate it. That's a great photo you took.
A lot of good you know people dming and like that's a
great picture friends of mine who saw hey that's cool i
was like yeah i didn't take it but yeah it's nice i appreciate it
i mean yeah thank you thank you for that no of course man i mean i want
to be able to do anything i can to you know support you guys and to
support you know small business and you know breweries and stuff

(52:18):
like that to me that's i mean you guys are the backbone man
like i want to do anything i can to to help thank
you because when you say small business we are the smallest of
the small all businesses our our
operation is tiny uh we were talking right before
you hit record and i was telling you how like i'm doing
this all on my own yeah you know i'm handling the sales

(52:40):
the branding the social media
the deliveries all of that on my own and
mainly because i have no other choice right yeah
and that's just what you have to do when you're you have an
idea and you have a dream and a goal and you got
to start and so i'm doing it
you know yeah so yeah so thank you for the support everybody out there

(53:01):
like who's been following liking resharing buying
the beer stealing the beer you thank you thank
you for the support because it means a lot it's crucial and we're going to continue
to need everybody's support moving forward so thank you oh for sure man and
you're a one man's just army knife with everything that you have to do man that's
you know i mean i I feel like I have a lot to do with, with, with this and like,

(53:25):
you know, my job, but man, yeah, you're, you have like, you know,
that tab, that in tenfold.
Well, you know, in terms of the actual labor, right? Like moving cakes and picking
up cakes and that's all me.
Yeah. But in the bigger picture, like I do have some help, right?
Again, Blanca and the other designers that we work with, because I'm,

(53:46):
I don't do any of the designing of any of the cans, right?
Yeah. I leave that up to the super talented professionals. I couldn't do that without them.
Carlos, who I mentioned earlier, he does a lot of behind the scenes.
He'll make phone calls on my behalf and connect me with people and set up meetings
with potential collaborators.
And so someone like that on my team has been crucial as well,

(54:08):
even just to like bounce ideas off of like, and I do that with him all the time.
Like, you know, cause I, I really respect his, his thought process,
his ideas, his take on the world rather. Yeah.
And so I'd be like, Hey, what do you think? You know, how does this sound?
Or how does this feel? Or how does this look? And he's like,
yeah, that's cool. Or no. Or how, or he'll be like, how about this?

(54:29):
Yeah. All that stuff is helpful.
And even more, more than that kind of help. You know, I have my wife at home, my wife and kids.
There's no way that I can chase this dream of building this brand without my wife, you know?
Yeah. Because to be honest, like I'm, I'm doing this and, you know,

(54:49):
I'm making beer sales, money's coming in, money's going out,
but money's not going into my pocket.
So without my wife holding it down, I wouldn't be able to pursue this venture
that is Norwalk brew house.
So, you know, so yeah, I'm doing all the heavy lifting on my own,
but I have help and those people have been very crucial to the process.

(55:14):
So big shout out to my wife and to all the other wives and moms out there who
make it possible for other, for their significant others to do whatever it is
they're trying to do in their lives.
Yeah. It's important to have help. It's also important to seek help and to ask
for help when you need it.
That's why I'm always more than happy to help anybody who's interested in going this route.

(55:40):
Again, earlier I was texting for like 30 minutes answering questions on how
much does a contract, a wholesaler license cost, where to lease kegs or where
to buy kegs and all of these these things.
So anybody out there listening, you need some information, you need some help,
feel free to DM me, Instagram or walkthroughhouse, go on the website,

(56:03):
shoot an email. I'm always happy to help.
That's cool, man. I mean, and like you got to end it, you're going back to like the support.
I mean, like you got to have a good support system no matter what.
I mean, whether, like, you know, whether it was at home, but obviously with
your wife. So like I said, kudos to your wife for, you know, for, for doing that.
And, you know, I'm letting you like chase your dream right and then you
also have the socal sabaceros you know to help you that too like i mean

(56:25):
that's what i love about the crap beer community and you talked about earlier the collaboration
and everybody just wants i mean obviously are.
There a few bad apples out there obviously but i mean but
everybody wants everyone to succeed you know yeah.
Because everyone's like that's what i love i feel like.
The crap beer community and people probably hate hearing me say this
on the show because i say it all the time sure but it is like it really

(56:46):
is like it's there's no other industry like it where like
there's like people think oh like why don't you like aren't you
they competitors and stuff like that it's like dude like that's my buddy
you know look there there
is that as well and i i have experienced that
also but really like
that's fueled by by people

(57:08):
thinking or or people's belief that
there's not enough for everybody video going on you know and so i
i've had a couple experiences early on where friends
of mine who are also in went from homebrew to
professional didn't didn't
think you know they were they were trying to
trying to get off the ground and try to do things and we were trying to

(57:30):
collaborate and it just didn't work because of that
belief like oh you're my competition when it's
like no we can can help each other and we can
go further of course instead of like i'm
trying to just get my own stuff for me
and and you know that whole i guess
approach yeah i've met so many great people in this industry and for the most

(57:54):
part people are are happy to share and happy to because they also went through
the experience they know how tough it's yeah running a business starting a business
is like the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Yeah.
Doing it correctly because I have, I spent like 20 years doing music and,

(58:14):
you know, I had my own little record label.
I had my own little management company, but I was never actually doing it correctly. Right.
I didn't ever have any budgets. I never tried to, to seek out money from investors.
I didn't even know you could do that. You know, I'd never had a business plan.
It was always just doing things I knew how to do in the moment,
you know, like, okay, I want to press up a album.

(58:38):
Album well how how do i get there i'm gonna need
to record music okay let's record music and then
figured that out yeah figure out how to press up the record and whatever but
it was never like now like you know i have to i have to pay taxes i have to
renew permits and licenses i have I have to have a commercial warehouse lease.

(59:04):
I have to budget for cans and for beer.
And, you know, like it's a whole different ball game now.
And it's just, it's hard. It's difficult. Wow. I mean, I can only imagine.
I mean, that's tough, man. Like you gotta, but I mean, you're out here grinding and you're doing it.
I mean, and you gotta, you gotta love to see that. that what's

(59:27):
great about it is like in the beginning it's scary
when you don't have a lot of information you don't i'm
sure it's daunting you're for sure yeah but once you get in
it and you're figuring things out and you're getting information and you're
solving problems you get better and it becomes less and less scary so now where

(59:47):
i'm at is this is probably the first time I'm going to publicly say this, we are now, we,
me and my wife and my small team,
mainly me and my wife, we are now looking to go from wholesale to a physical location.
So awesome, man. I am scouting, building locations right now.

(01:00:08):
Okay. There's one building where, so I put together a little team.
I've got a commercial real estate broker, a lawyer, and a designer to do building
plans and things like that, build out plans.
So we're, we're negotiating lease terms on a building that I've been eyeballing for a while.
So that's been happening for a few months now and also scouting other potential locations.

(01:00:32):
So moving forward, the plan is this is the last year we'll be in contract brewing.
Okay. We're going to move over to nano brewery tap room and move some of the
production in-house. Well, I'll, I'll still continue to contract brew larger
volumes of our core beer. Yeah.
But I say all that to say is we're making the move into a location.

(01:00:54):
That's awesome, man. Going through that process. Yeah.
Was in the beginning is scary, right? Because now you're like,
okay, this space that we're in here, and for the listeners listening,
we're in our warehouse space here in Santa Fe Springs. It's about a thousand square foot.
Our lease was like two-year lease, whatever.

(01:01:14):
When you're going to lease a commercial space, like a restaurant or a bar,
you're looking at a minimum of a five-year lease to a 10-year lease.
That's a longer commitment. Of course, yeah. That's higher rent.
You're it's a lot more capital you
know and so that's scary but now
that i'm i've been in it at least scouting locations

(01:01:35):
looking at numbers trying to figure out what i'm
going to do to raise capital there's people that are
interested in investing i've had a couple conversations it's not
as scary okay i still don't have the money
i need right now in this moment as we do this podcast but i'm
working on it and i'm figuring it out and it's not
as scary so if you're out there listening and

(01:01:57):
you have dreams or interest in
starting a small business whether it's in beer or not i would
say don't wait just go yep even if you don't have money just take the first
step whatever it is yeah searching the name online in google seeing if that
name is available creating your instagram account once you make you take that

(01:02:18):
first step and you say okay i'm I'm going to do this. You start to figure it out. Oh yeah.
And then, you know, one thing leads to another, somebody introduces you to somebody
else who has the information you need, or, you know, it just starts to work.
You start to build momentum and things start to work.
Yeah, man. I mean, and that's like how cool, like, it's almost like somebody

(01:02:39):
say like, cause my, my dad would always tell me like, you know,
like, you know, cause I couldn't decide what I wanted to do when I was younger,
but he would just like make a checklist, like, you know, and check one thing off that list every day.
You don't have to check it all off because if you try to check it all off,
you're going to wear yourself out and you're going to make yourself crazy.
But if you check off one thing at a time, you know, slowly but surely you'll
get there. That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:03:01):
Before, when I used to sit and think like, I want to open up a brewery. Yeah.
When you look at the whole thing, like the dream of a brewery,
that could be overwhelming, right?
Because you're like, oh my God, I'm going to need a minimum of $500,000 to get
off the ground. Then I'm going to have to buy equipment.
I'm going to have to hire a staff. I like it. That's just a lot.
Of course. But if you have a checklist and you start at what's the smallest

(01:03:23):
step you could take? What's step one?
What's that first thing you're going to check off? You know,
and it's, let me first find out if the city I want to open up in even allows breweries. Yeah. Okay.
That's not, that's not a big task. That's relatively easy. Yeah.
That's not overwhelming.
Then once you find that out, then you can move to the next step.
And then before you know it, you're off and running, you know? Oh yeah.

(01:03:47):
And, uh, sorry, I had to burp a little bit.
That'll probably get edited out after. Sometimes I leave stuff in because I'm
like, yeah, you know, I like it to be like raw and unedited.
It's a beer podcast, essentially, right? Oh, of course.
One thing I wanted to ask, because a couple more questions. I don't want to
keep you on that because I know you have... We're good. We're good.
Okay. Didn't want to keep you too long.
But the one thing I wanted to

(01:04:08):
ask is, because we talked a little bit off here, that you were in a band.
Yes. And you were telling me how you were really passionate about music.
Could you tell us about that?
Yeah. I've been into music since I was a kid. And when I was about 17,
some friends of mine who were in the marching band and jazz band in high school.
I went to Wilson high school here in Los Angeles, kind of Northeast LA area. Yeah.

(01:04:29):
Not the Wilson in Long Beach. I know a lot of people are familiar with that high school. Yeah.
No, I went to the Wilson where that has all the Latinos, all the Mexican kids. Oh, there you go.
Anyhow. So I had these group of friends who had a band.
I was 17 and I got invited to a rehearsal
and I went to hang out and I got invited because I used to be in,

(01:04:53):
I had this history class and two friends of mine were, were into hip hop like I was.
And so we would freestyle in class after school, just kind of messing around.
And one, my, I have this memory.
Memory one day we had a substitute teacher and the teacher was like i don't

(01:05:14):
know what you guys supposed to do just hang out i'm just getting paid to watch
you guys yeah so me and these two guys.
Put on like a little show like we were just
freestyling but we were making fun of each other and everybody
else in the class so it was like we had like kids laughing
and stuff we were just like freestyle rapping you know well one
of the guys that was in the band that at

(01:05:35):
that time in the marching band was in that
class so he tells me hey i have a band like
me and some of the guys in this school have have
a band you should come hang out turns out like the the bass player in this group
what i was already friends with yeah and so like oh i know these guys so that
i get invited to a rehearsal i go and it's the first time i see in front of

(01:05:58):
my face like a group Group musicians playing all in sync together.
And they're my age. And I was like, what the heck? Like, these guys are awesome.
Yeah. And I was like, I want, I want to do this.
And so they invited me back and
I ended up in this band. And the band was called East LA Sabor Factory.
East LA Sabor Factory. East LA Flavor Factory. Nice. That's awesome.

(01:06:22):
And we were from Wilson High School.
One of the members was from Garfield High School, But we were basically from
Boyle Heights, East LA, Hillside Village, which is right by Cal State LA.
Okay. City Terrace. And we were like 10 members in this band.
Yeah. So from the time, let's see, I joined in like 98.

(01:06:43):
We put out a record in like 2000. We went on tour, toured up and down the West
Coast. Wow. That's awesome, man.
Our music is in film and TV and we did all that stuff. We performed on TV.
We had some songs on the radio.
We weren't signed to a major label or anything like that. We did it all independently.
But I did that for several years and that was my entire life.

(01:07:05):
And I was like, this is what I'm going to do forever. Like I'm going to become
a big rock star and live in a mansion.
And what's really cool is that
after I stopped doing music and I got into beer, I started to see music.
How similar the beer industry is

(01:07:25):
to the music industry okay and like the
first thing i i i noticed was like you
have all these big beer companies and and if
you remember years ago these beer companies were going
around snatching up smaller breweries oh for
sure smaller craft breweries because they were like losing a
little bit of market share so they were snatching up these smaller breweries putting

(01:07:47):
out product to make it look like they were quote-unquote
independent or craft same thing with
the record industry you had these these conglomerate labels
excuse me i too am burping and i'm not even drinking beer that's all right and
so you had like these big labels snatching up all these indie labels and putting
out product music bands or what have you to make it seem like they were indie

(01:08:12):
you know like oh that's that's similar like that's It's very closely related. I see that.
But even the beer game in terms of like selling product, like what I'm doing now.
So when I, when I look at my beer, I'm like, all right, I'm like the band manager.
These are like my artists. Bidi Bidi Blan Blan is like a band on my roster.

(01:08:33):
La Mano, same thing. And it's the same game. Like I got a, I,
I, I write a press releases when I'm going to put out a new beer.
I send it out and I try to get press.
Same thing with an album. album you record an album you're
going to release it you release a single you or you release a
press release and try to get coverage try to get reviewed interviews

(01:08:53):
and it's the same thing yeah and i'm like this is the same thing
it's just beer instead of songs you know
yeah and so that's been my approach and and
that's also why i the beer is called
bitty bitty blonde blonde because it's a reference to selena yeah
which is because of my background in
music so at the homebrew level before all this commercial

(01:09:14):
stuff a lot of my beers made references to
singers okay and were named after songs and
stuff so that's definitely in the dna
of the brand and as i grow and continue deeper in this business i think the
music element will start to show even more okay back in 2021 we did a collaboration

(01:09:36):
with eagle rock brewery called love fights back okay love Love Fights Back is the,
is a song by a rapper named Tumex.
Oh, I don't think I've heard of him. Tumex is like a legendary LA rapper.
Oh, wow. Like super underground.
He was also in a group called the, the Visionaries and a couple others as well.
But he's been in the rap game since like the nineties.

(01:09:58):
Tumex, too Mexican. Yeah. Latino. So. So.
2021, I'm at home. The pandemic is ramping up.
We're all sheltering in place.
I'm watching TV and I'm watching all of the civil unrest unfold.
And I'm just sitting there thinking like, man, this is fucked up.

(01:10:21):
And at home, in the safety of my home and the comfort of my home,
probably in some chanclas and shorts on my couch, that thought just started to mess with me.
It's like what what can i do like i gotta do something it's like
there's something i can do and what i settled
on was like how do i leverage my music network and

(01:10:41):
my beer network and what ended up happening is i reached out to to uh jeremy
at eagle rock who actually that's where we contract brew the blonde and i was
just like hey you know this is how i'm feeling i feel like i should do do something
or is there something we can do? Can we collaborate on something?
And then Jeremy was like, you know, me and Ting, Ting, his wife,

(01:11:04):
we were having the same conversation and we were feeling like there's something we could do.
So we ended up saying, let's, let's collaborate on a beer.
And I was like, I know Tumex. He has this song called Love Fights Back.
I feel like that's a great theme.
Like we as people, as Americans, as human beings can act from love to counter

(01:11:26):
all the hate that's out there right that's where my head was in the song tumix
love fights back tumix says.
Says something like when when all else fail
loves fight love fights back okay and he
does a series of lines where he says love fights back you know when it gets
rough love fights back yeah and you know when when when there's hate out there

(01:11:48):
love fights back etc right so we did this collaboration we brought two mechs
on board he gave us permission to use his image and the name of the song and we we added a QR code.
And so back in 2011, so in 2007, I was a solo artist.
I released a record under my name, Ray Ricky Rivera, neighborhood fame.

(01:12:11):
If anybody cares to go check it out, it's a hip hop record.
I was following that up in 2011. I went into the studio to record my second album.
I was going to call it, I coincidentally has love in the title called Love Is Not A Fight.
I never finished the record. I still have like half an album sitting on a computer

(01:12:33):
in a studio and saying, hey bro.
But anyhow, there was a song on there that was almost done. It just needed vocals.
So we're doing this collaboration with Eagle Rock. I'm like, hey, I have this song.
What if I reach out to various musicians, vocalists, and MCs in in LA that I've
worked with that I know, get them to do vocals on this song.

(01:12:55):
We'll stick the QR code on the can.
Okay. Release the, the, the collab.
And as a thank you, people can scan the QR code, check out this song. So that's what we did.
So it was awesome for me because it was like, we were doing this beer collab.
It was actually my first commercial release with Eagle Rock.

(01:13:17):
And i was back in in i
was back producing music yeah so i was basically
coordinating with four vocalists each
in their own house in their own studio because we were in lockdown
yeah emailing dming i sent them
the instrumental they each sent me their vocals
i sent it to my audio engineer in

(01:13:39):
san gabriel he put it in the song mixed it we did some editing got the song
done and we put it out and that beer really is that beer is what this brand
is supposed to be yeah you know or what i want it to be it's like it's beer and it's music and it's,
Doing it for a good cause. Yeah. And so Eagle Rock donated the proceeds of that

(01:14:02):
beer to a nonprofit in Los Angeles that works in black and brown neighborhoods
that helps to, what is the,
I forgot the name of the actual nonprofit.
Basically, they do work in the hood to make sure that the streets are safe.
So they work with local police departments.
Okay. On behalf of the citizens. Yeah. Just to make sure, you know,

(01:14:26):
people are on the same page and no one's getting gunned down when they shouldn't
be. Things like that. Yeah, of course.
And so, dang, that was a long, that was a long. It's all good.
But that all ties back to my roots in music. Yeah. And to the idea of make good beer, do good things.
And so I haven't really gone back to that where we're actually producing music

(01:14:50):
to tie into a beer release.
But i i want to get back to that and do that some more
because it was really fun yeah i mean you get like two of
the loves your life right colliding i mean i'm
sure that was like so probably so fulfilling for you it
was it was and i think the
best thing about that was i wasn't
doing it because like oh i'm trying to

(01:15:13):
make money here or it was really sparked
by this idea like how we want to to make a contribution to
what's going on right now but how do we do that like we're trying to be
useful you know we're trying to do something positive trying to be productive
yeah and that's what it led to and that release love fights back with eagle
rock which also was a blonde ale we used mango and guava is a really nice beer

(01:15:36):
but that beer really like put a spark under me you you know, to,
to move forward with this venture and to really, to really try to look at this
brand Norwalk Brewhouse, not just as a beer brand, but to really try to see
how I can, you know, make a positive impact.

(01:15:56):
How, how can I give back, you know?
So yeah, so Love Fights Back by Eagle Rock Brewery. I don't think you could
find it anymore, that beer, but maybe it'll come back one day.
Yeah. You never know. People always love special releases and stuff like that, so you never know.
Shout out to Eagle Rock Brewery, Jeremy, Ting, and everybody over there.

(01:16:18):
If you haven't been to Eagle Rock, definitely check them out.
Okay. They're one of the OGs in the LA beer scene.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but they're like one of the first craft
breweries to open in LA city proper.
Oh wow. Once they, they, they changed the laws. Cause you know,
before it was like illegal to open up a brewery. Yeah. You know,
post prohibition. Yeah.
And Eagle Rock was one of the first in LA city to, to open.

(01:16:42):
I think they opened like 2009, but great brewery, great people.
And they're always giving back. They, they're always working with nonprofits
doing cool stuff like that. So.
That's awesome. And they've been a tremendous help to me and launching.
Oh, Jeremy, like he put me up on game all the time. Oh yeah.
It was funny. He's like, we did the first batch of beer and he was like,

(01:17:06):
so how are you going to get this beer from our brewery to your warehouse?
And I was like, oh, I'm just going to use my car. I'm going to call up a couple of homies.
We're going to come load up our trunks. And he was like, nah,
dude. I was like, why not? Yeah. I have like three cars.
He's like, bro. Yeah. This is like thousands of pounds of beer.
And i i didn't even know you know and i was like oh shit

(01:17:28):
had to get a truck and everything yeah and
so yeah so shout out to jeremy uh
he's been he's been a huge help he's basically a mentor of mine whether he knows
it or not yeah i learned a lot yeah yeah that's cool man and like i see i've
never been to eagle rock i've always i've been wanting to go because after i
talked to josh over at brew yard um a while back i think it's been over a year

(01:17:53):
now since i talked to josh but super Super nice guy,
but he would always tell me that the Eagle Rock guys would come down and hang
out and have a beer and stuff like that.
And even then, like you can have like brewers come from other breweries to go
and people, you know, probably maybe outside of the industry may not get that.
But yeah, you have other brewers going to other breweries after work to have a beer, you know.

(01:18:14):
But I mean, like, how cool is that? Because then you guys, you know,
you guys can shoot the shit. You guys can kind of like, oh, what do you got
going on or what's coming up? Like, you know, all that sort of stuff.
Yeah. No, breweries, at least in LA, from my experience, everybody's helping out everybody.
Buddy you know somebody's out of yeast and needs yeast
they'll make a call hey do you have it you we need some yeast you got yeast or

(01:18:34):
you know hey i know like uh ruben who you
interviewed oh yeah burning bridge right such a fun episode and i think i'm
a great guy i think on on that episode he mentions how like they wash their
kegs at another brewery you know because they're helping them out and also i
think he also mentioned he bought that brewery from feathered serpent who was

(01:18:55):
also from the Soul Casa Beceros.
So there's a lot of that that happens, you know, like just helping. Yeah.
And yeah, I have a ton of help too. That's awesome, man. Eagle Rock,
Brewery West, and on and on. Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's cool. I wanted to ask, because you mentioned that growing up in East
LA, I mean, because I grew up in Pico for the most part, but did you ever go

(01:19:17):
to like Allen B's over like in LA?
First Street? Oh yeah. It was like one of my, like the best spread of beef burritos.
It was like, yeah, the best spread of beef burrito in the world to me.
Well, I know Allen B's because of their bean and cheese.
Oh yeah. It's a great bean and cheese too. Yeah. A lot of people locally hold
that bean and cheese in high regard. Oh yeah.
But the bean and cheese for me was always from Mario's, the one in Pico.

(01:19:39):
They're right by Brujeria. So I would always go there when I was a kid.
I haven't had that yet. Yeah. I gotta go. One of my favorites when I drive up
to my sister's house, cause she lives up in like Tulare, like Fresno area. Okay.
Whenever I go up there, like I always tell like, I'll have to pick up like 10
burritos to take up there.
I usually only about eight of them make it up, but you know.
The only knock I have on Allen B's is that it's cash only.

(01:20:01):
Yeah. So like I do a lot of deliveries in Boyle Heights. I do a lot of business
in Boyle Heights specifically.
It's where I was born. I grew up. So when I launched the beer,
I just started calling people that I know. All my contacts are in Boyle Heights.
So as a result, I spent a lot. I spend a lot of time. I was just there two days ago making a delivery.
So sometimes I'll like be driving by like, oh, Allen B's.

(01:20:25):
Yeah. And I stopped in a couple of times and like, I don't have any cash. Damn it. Yeah.
That's like the, it's like the blessing and the curse because you know,
if the place is cash only, it's probably freaking really good. Yeah.
And then we don't just, I don't, I rarely carry cash. The only time I get cash
out is when I have to go pick up those burritos.
Look, if a place is cash only, it means they're not taxing. Yeah.

(01:20:46):
Pretty much. Yeah. Hey, well, good for them. Good for them.
That's the spot though if yeah so listeners if
you're ever in Boyle Heights or East LA area yep First Street
L&B's right next to the Hollenbeck
Rec Center yeah where I think Oscar De La Hoya may have trained there when he

(01:21:06):
was a kid for a little bit I heard something about that I don't like I don't
know for sure but I'm pretty sure like that's like I remember like hear people
telling stories and stuff like well there's there's a boxer right now a woman's
boxer her Her name is super bad.
Oh, really? She trained there. Oh, dang. She holds the record.
I'm forgetting her real name. It's like Seniesa or something like that.

(01:21:27):
But her nickname is super bad.
Yeah. She holds the record for women's boxing for the fastest knockout.
Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like five seconds or something.
But she used to train there as a kid. Damn, that's cool. Yeah, yeah.
That's awesome. A lot of history in that area. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, but the first time I went, I was like, I remember walking up because
it was like a bars on the windows. I was like, what's going on?

(01:21:50):
But then I tried the burrito. I was like, oh my gosh, this is like amazing.
But yeah, I mean, honestly, this has been super fun. One thing I was up to ask
before we finish up an episode is a, do you have like, because obviously I know
you brew like, you don't see that the Biddy Biddy Blondon and the Lomano, the Mexican lager.
Did you ever like, even when you were homebrewing, did you have like a favorite
style you like to brew and then brew and drink as well? Yeah.

(01:22:12):
My favorite styles to brew were Belgians and specifically Belgian Saison.
And in general, I'm a fan of a Belgian beer.
I don't know, something about Belgian yeast, you get all kinds of things happening
with the Belgian yeast. Yeah.
And as a home brewer, the, the yeast does all the magic, you know,

(01:22:36):
like you don't have to do much. So I don't know, Belgian beers are just so delicious.
And there's Saison, Whitbeer, Dubelle, whatever, Trappist Ale.
And just the history alone of Belgian beer history. You know,
when I learned that like monks were amongst the first to brew beer in Belgium, it blew my mind.

(01:22:59):
And like, it's super cool. Oh, it's awesome.
You know, because depending on who you talk to, some people believe like,
oh, beer, that's the devil.
Or, you know, they have like this bad connotation to it. But like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Monastery monks brewed beer, like not only for themselves, but to keep their monastery running.
Oh, yeah. And so that history is super cool to me.

(01:23:22):
So I had a lot of fun with Belgians. And I think the fun part for me was specifically brewing a Saison.
So like, you know, when you brew a beer and you ferment it.
If you want to dial in your fermentation, you're going to control the temperature, right?
So you might build out a temperature control chamber or fermentation chamber, what have you.

(01:23:46):
Or not. You could just let it sit
out and let the natural temperature of whatever room do its thing. Yeah.
But with the yeast and with other various Belgian yeast strains,
you can have a really low temperature, mid, or run it really hot, high.
Yeah. And at each level of temp, the yeast does something different.

(01:24:10):
Yeah. And you know, so, so if you're like fermenting at like,
I don't know, 62 or whatever, and you let it go up to like 75,
I've gone as high as like 89, 90, which is pretty warm. Yeah.
But certain yeast strains, they, they can hack it specifically Saison yeast
strains in my experience as a home brewer.

(01:24:30):
Yeah. So I always thought that was super cool. Like. Oh, of course.
Yeah. You know, cause, cause yeast is a, it's alive.
It's, it's living, breathing, creating alcohol, you know, doing all the real,
the real work. Let's be honest.
But just to like, see how the yeast acts differently at different temperatures.
That's just so cool to me. Oh yeah. So that was always fun.

(01:24:54):
Brewing Belgian styles. That's fun.
I haven't brewed it in a long time. Now that I'm actively selling and distributing
beer, I'm also a father, got what feels like 10 kids.
We have two kids that are still in, you know, fourth and seventh grade.
And so between family life and trying to build this business,

(01:25:18):
I don't really have time to homebrew. So it's been a minute.
So I kind of miss it a little bit. Yeah. And as a contract brewer,
which I think a lot, a lot of people don't know this.
And some home brewers who are, who want to get into contract brewing,
they don't realize that you're not actually brewing.
Like I'm not physically brewing the beer.
And mostly because when you're contracting, you're paying the brewery who you're

(01:25:44):
contracting with to use their labor and their staff to brew your product.
And a lot of the breweries, they prefer you not brew it because they know their
staff and those brewers know the system. Yeah. They have it all dialed in. Right.
But there are, there are some cases where like you, if you're going to brew
at a homie's brewery and you go hang out on brew day, you have a mash in or whatever. Yeah.

(01:26:07):
Me, I prefer to like, Hey, handle this, make this beer for me.
I'll come pick it up and then I'll start doing it.
So I don't actually physically haven't been brewing. Yeah.
So yeah, if you're looking to get into contract brewing and you're a home brewer,
you're going to do no brewing.
Yeah. So think about that. But favorite beer to drink as a home brewer,

(01:26:29):
again, brewing Belgian style beers was fun.
For a long time, I was into pale ale. Okay.
Never really been a big India pale ale drinker, although I definitely respect the style.
I'll drink it from time to time. same but preference wise
something a little on the lighter side now i

(01:26:49):
love light beers yeah pilsner's lagers
pilsner's lagers yeah i don't know
what it is i think oh same yeah i'm right there with you it's like that and
the west coast and like well that's you those are my always the first things
i'll order when i go to a place because i know if those are good everything
else is probably pretty pretty damn good yeah yeah i think like with a lager

(01:27:12):
and and i've heard you You mentioned this on your show before,
like with a, with a good lager,
you know, that brewery's producing great product. Cause you can't hide behind a lager.
Yeah. Like for sure. That's like, if you're naked. Yeah.
You can't just throw fruit in it to make it, you know, this or that. That's right.
But you know, a, a, a well-produced lager is just a nice way to drink beer.

(01:27:33):
It's just enjoyable and you can knock back a few and be okay.
Yeah. And the art behind that, because you can't hide behind it.
That's why I love it so much because there's so like, you can't like,
you can fuck it up real quick, but if you have like a sour or something like
that, you can kind of, you know, change something up or throw some fruit in or something like that.
Make it like, oh, it's now it's okay now or it tastes better now.

(01:27:56):
The other style that's really fun to brew is a stouts. Oh yeah.
Cause you know, I love coffee.
Oh yeah. As you can see, I'm drinking coffee now. Yeah. Yeah.
So coffee and beer, like that combination is so delicious.
Oh yeah. You know, notes of chocolate, coffee, and you know,
that's a stout where you get all those, those characteristics in a stout.

(01:28:17):
And so it's fun. I had a lot of fun brewing stouts and trying different things.
Mint, mint, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, all of those things. Like that's a lot of fun.
Oh, for sure, man. And I just wanted to say, like, I'm really like excited that
I, you know, you got to hear on the show that you're going to go to like a brick
and mortar and stuff like that and opening up a shop for you.
So whenever you're, you do guys get closer open, I know it's a ways down the

(01:28:41):
road, but when that day comes, let me know. And I'll be there for a stay brother to support.
Absolutely. Again, thank you so much for your support.
Yeah. So making that jump also, so we're going to be doing some crowdfunding
as a result of making this, this move.
So the crowdfund might be happening when this episode airs or we might be getting ready to launch.

(01:29:03):
So timing's pretty close. Yeah. And if that's the case, just,
you know, shoot me a text.
I mean, I'll text you and shoot me a text and let me know what the thing is.
I can promote it on the intro for that, for when the episode comes out. Oh, that'd be great.
Yeah. If we're ready, I will let you know. Sounds good.
All right. Now, like I said, I really appreciate you doing this.
This has been a blast for me and I got to have a couple of your beers and,
you know, they're both delicious.

(01:29:24):
And I love the hard work and all the effort that, you know, whether it's from
your family or like anybody else that's a part of it, like Blanca or at little
Andrea on Instagram. Yeah.
That's awesome, man. So I appreciate you and I commend you for all that you're doing, man.
Thank you. you. Hey, props to you for doing this, for creating a platform for

(01:29:46):
people like me and others in the industry.
I listened to the podcast. You have some really cool guests.
I listened to the one, was it John? Oh, John Sanchez.
Native son. Learned a few things. That dude seems like he's super smart.
Oh, he is. Seems like somebody that I should be friends with. Yeah.
A really nice guy. Shout out to my buddy Art at LA Brew Life.

(01:30:06):
He set it all up for me. So I was like, man, And I was like,
you tell me where to go and I'll be there, man. So it was really cool.
Hey, keep it up doing some great work. Thanks, man. So cheers to you.
All right. Well, I appreciate it. And I'll take a little swig to that and we'll
finish. There you go. Cheers.
Cheers, brother. I'm all out. Oh, good.
All right, guys. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the interview with Ray Ricky Rivera.

(01:30:31):
Obviously, I butchered his name in the beginning. I said Ricky Ray Rivera. That was my bad.
But you know me. I don't edit a ton, so I left that in.
But yeah, obviously, really good dude. Norwalk Brewhouse. Such an amazing person.
All right. Well, this next part of the episode will be the goodbyes to Nadav.

(01:30:53):
Nadav, we love you. We'll miss you. we can't wait
to see you come back but also visit you in israel thank
you for everything you've done we love you nadavatron i love you i love you
so much you've been such a helpful person to us from getting our tanks put in
i'm sure garrett maybe said some of the same things but you're just in you're
fucking you're the rock you're the rock of my world and i love you bye Bye.

(01:31:18):
Sir Nadav, we love you. We appreciate you.
We're so glad, and I'm so glad, this is Kurt, by the way, that I got to know
you and got to work with you and partner with you at Beer Lab.
It's been so fun playing disc golf with you and hanging out with you and just
getting to know you and your family.

(01:31:39):
What a positive influence on this community you've been.
So we're going to miss you. We can't wait to see you when you visit.
We hope to be able to come visit you out there at some point.
But either way, man, best of luck.
We wish you well. We love you. And can't wait to see you make their beer better.
Hey, Nadav, this is Russ. Good luck on your new journey. I wish you all the best.

(01:32:03):
I'll come over and play a Frisbee golf course once you get one set up.
Hey brother, it's Jason. Love you, but yet still hate you. Fuck off. We'll talk soon.
Nadav, we'll miss you big time. Love you.
You've been great and I enjoyed our interaction yesterday, three hours at Turner's,

(01:32:23):
but I will always love you.
The fact that you knew so much about fixing things that other people don't know.
And your, your, your craft taste is always great. and drinking with you is always
a treat. All the best to you and Chelsea.
Yo, Nadav, Bags, thank you for being a good friend. I hope you all the best out in Israel.

(01:32:48):
Can't wait for you to come back and visit. I want to hear all about it.
Please clean those people up from using bottles, cans only. Have a good time, man. Be safe.
All right. Well, Nadav, now it's my turn to say bye.
Brother, I just want to say, man, I'm really happy for you. I'm really proud
of you for, you know, wanting to, you know, to go back to your home because
I know you got you and Chelsea felt that, you know, like you were being called back.

(01:33:11):
So man, nothing but the best. And I can't wait to talk to you when you get all
settled in over there at beer bazaar. So we'll go ahead and we'll talk,
but yeah, man, thank you for, you know, giving me a shot and being on the show
on episode four, like so early on.
And then also again, being on, you know, talking video games with me and star
Wars and all all that, you know, really good stuff on episode 41.

(01:33:35):
And, you know, just being a good friend, man.
You know, we get people like, you know, ask me a lot about, you know,
what it's like, what this industry is like, and it's great because of people like you.
So, you know, Godspeed, man. You guys, you, you know, may the force be with you.

(01:33:55):
All right. Well, Well, I'm going to end the episode now.
So I hope everybody has a great week and, you know, take care of everybody.
Hope, you know, if you let anybody that celebrates Easter out there,
hope you have a great Easter.
Music.

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Episode 59 - w/ Ray Ricky Rivera of Norwalk Brew House

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 59 - w/ Ray Ricky Rivera of Norwalk Brew House