Down and Out Down Under and Armed Forces Under Fire

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Australia's feeling the craft beer shakeout, the. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Strange saga of armed forces brewing. [00:00:10] Speaker A: Meet the guy who brought craft beer to New Orleans. [00:00:13] Speaker B: This is it's all beer. Welcome to It's All Beer, the podcast where I didn't write an intro this week. Tyler, you take it away. You always comment on my intros. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Welcome to it's all Beer, hosted by Tyler Zimmerman and fucking pudpolar Jeremy Jones. Look, we're going to bring sad, terrible, and somewhat entertaining news about the craft beer world tonight, so strap in and drink up. [00:00:51] Speaker B: First of all, what you see me doing when I answer the video call is not my life, okay? [00:01:00] Speaker A: I'm not here to judge. [00:01:03] Speaker B: How are you this evening? [00:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, pretty good. How are you doing? [00:01:09] Speaker B: It's been a fucked up week, as evidenced by the fact that I got to this point. I popped up the notes I've got this week and then I realized, oh, you didn't have an idea for an intro. So well done there. Improvised. And by improvised, I mean tossed that dead cat into Tyler's backyard. And you did fairly well, actually. I give you a B plus. [00:01:29] Speaker A: I was going to say, I think fairly quick on my feet. For being a fat kid. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Something's got to be quick, right? What you drinking tonight? [00:01:41] Speaker A: I am drinking the winter ale from Double Mountain brewing. [00:01:53] Speaker B: I'll give you a dollar to never, ever say the name of that beer again. [00:01:57] Speaker A: What, you don't like when I say I can't even fucking keep the straight face? [00:02:09] Speaker B: That sound you're hearing is all five of the people who listen to this podcast on a regular basis, like tuning it off because I'm fucking hungover. I cannot deal with that shit right now. It's fine. Just fast forward a few. How is the double Mountain Fala la la this year? [00:02:28] Speaker A: I mean, it's an old school winter ale. It's hoppy, it's Malty. It's exactly what I expected from Double Mountain. The true reason I bought it was to do that name. [00:02:40] Speaker B: That was it. That was the entire reason. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I, on the other hand, have made a terrible mistake. [00:02:53] Speaker A: I know. [00:02:55] Speaker B: So I guess what you're going to call it, the configuration of Baptist came out a couple of weeks ago. I'd had a couple of them and one I was curious about was the big bet. Which one do you think it is? Is there one that you've had that you're like, oh, my. [00:03:16] Speaker A: I don't know. You saying I've made a mistake and it referring to a Baptist. I'm like, they had to get real funky and it had to really be a miss. [00:03:29] Speaker B: Then why do you say that? Do you find me especially credulous when it comes to the eccentricities of Barrel age styles? [00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, I'm just imagining in my head you're experiencing with this what you experienced anytime you had a rogue, like, voodoo donut beer or their Sriracha beer. [00:03:56] Speaker B: It's not quite that horrific, but it's on that level. I'm not ready to submit. My reaction to the visceral reaction that you put on after drinking the monster. No. Was that the beast unleashed or what? No, that was a hard Mountain Dew. That was the hard was. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Okay, the hard Mountain Dew. [00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Fucking atrocious. I can chew this back, and I will be able to finish this entire can reluctantly. I got the big Bab Baptist Blueberry pie. It is an Imperial stout aged in whiskey barrels with nutmeg and natural flavors added according to the can barrel aged whiskey barrel aged blueberry pie was what they were going for. Which, you know what? I think I got bold after Bourbon County Foster. Yeah, Bourbon county bananas Foster, which I was fearing turned out to be exceptionally good. So I think I was encouraged. It smells like bourbon. Smells like bourbon and koolaid. It smells like a whiskey bar in a grape popsicle. [00:05:24] Speaker A: Like fucking dee dee just spilt a grape popsicle and a fucking dive bar. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Full of whiskey drinkers, and it tastes like. So you got the blueberry pie on the top, right? Well, you got, like, fake berry pie on top. So you got the caramel, you got, like, the doughy flavor. It's like Berry esque. And then right at the end, it's like the stout comes in and shits on it. So you've got a crappy Costco pie, right? [00:05:59] Speaker A: That's never Costco pumpkin pie. Fucking slaps. That breaks some peak, man. [00:06:08] Speaker B: I happen to know the man who makes the majority of the Costco pumpkin pies in this vAlley. Seeing him come in every day and he stops by my tap room pretty much every day around Thanksgiving is to see a man in the throes of his own personal. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Oh, I am sure. I was going to say, have you seen the time lapse videos of them loading the whole long ass table at Costco of pumpkin pies and then just the time lapse of them selling? [00:06:51] Speaker B: I have not seen that he has shown me video because besides that, a lot of, especially real estate agents and other people, will order hundreds of pumpkin pies that give out free to clients. And he once showed me a video of pallets. Pallets of pumpkin pies. That he had made earlier that day. I think he said, that's 10,000 pies. That's what I did today, is make 10,000 pies. And I now know what 10,000 pies looks like. [00:07:36] Speaker A: And it's not like some cute little Keebler pie tin, either. These are hefty bitches. [00:07:43] Speaker B: But back to this. This is not good. Again, at its core, it tastes like artificial berry flavor. And Rogue's dirty stout, it doesn't have the rich chocolate. Maybe the chocolate is clashing with it, is what I'm getting. Like, that unsweetened chocolate is clashing with that sweet, fruity flavor in a way that just makes it taste dirty. But, no. [00:08:18] Speaker A: I'm not a big blueberry pie fan, so I would have never tried this one and really glad that I wouldn't have. [00:08:26] Speaker B: I will eat a blueberry pie. I don't think it's my favorite. I love a blueberry. You pass me a clamshell of blueberries, I will eat the fuck out of those blueberries. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:42] Speaker B: And a blueberry pie is a wonderful thing. This is a crime against man, woman, law, God, and nature. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Hi. You just stick with pumpkin or apple. [00:08:58] Speaker B: Epic. There's a reason why the Naked Baptist suddenly became very popular. Scale it back. Scale it back. Guys, I know we're in a phase where you just don't sell anything unless you start adding marshmallow fluff, salted caramel, chocolate, cocoa puff shit to your barrel aged beer, but scale it back. So anyway, as I choke back this beer, Tyler, do you want to get us started today? [00:09:37] Speaker A: Yep. We're going to Jeremy's least favorite place down under. I'm pretty sure you've shit on Australia, like, three times on this. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Not. It's not my least favorite shit during the World Cup. I shit on Qatar way more. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah, but that was because you can't buy bacon and beer without a license. [00:09:59] Speaker B: And those are two of my favorite things. That's a good reason to shit on a country, I think. I've also shit on Thailand pretty hard. England and Ireland, despite being quite fond of Ireland myself. I think every European country we've covered, I think I've probably shit on Belgium and Germany, despite actually having an affinity for both those countries. So I'm not against Australia. They just live on the wrong side of the planet. That's why they're inferior. Well, blood's rushing to their head. That's the problem. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yep. And apparently people aren't rushing into tap rooms either. It's an article from ABC. News down in the Sunshine coast, talking about how Australia's once booming craft beer scene is hitting some rough waters right now. They spoke with Rupert hall, who owns Ten Toes Brewery, which really made me be like, why are you bragging about having ten toes? That's kind of the standard amount there, budy. [00:11:18] Speaker B: I don't know what the Sunshine coast is like in Australia, but what if it's something like Mississippi? And having ten toes is actually kind of a. Listen, none of us are genetic defectives, all right? All of us have ten toes. All of our teeth, both eyes, face, mostly the same way. We're the top of the food chain here, motherfucker. [00:11:39] Speaker A: But they were talking to Rupert, and he goes on to talk about how there's been a stark increase in breweries going under in the last nine to twelve months. They specifically mentioned Berlay barrels brewing, which closed less than 18 months after initially opening. And the main causes are increased operational cost and decline in sales, which I was like, that's kind of the two things that will really take a fucking business. Your sales decline, your costs go up, you're fucked. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Those are two things that those go about as well together as blueberry and fucking bourbon barrel age. Empirical stout. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, the big thing that this article really kind of highlights that I found really interesting is the tax burden apparently has just jumped. Australia apparently has the third highest tax beer industry in the world. In the last three years, the excise tax for beer has gone up 11%. Australia apparently allowed excise tax to be deferred during the pandemic, but that basically just led to just a huge pile of debt. And so when the deferred stopped, it was all due. And now these breweries have a huge payment they have to make back to the country and aren't able to do it. [00:13:17] Speaker B: I'm always sort of surprised how restrictive the British and former British colonies are towards alcohol, because booze built that empire. And when I first learned that pubs close in England at about 11:00, and by the way, in England, they're taxed at about the same rate. It sort of ran into against everything I knew about the British and their derivatives. [00:13:57] Speaker A: But Rupert hall said most of the breweries in his area are down 20% to 30% right now, some being down 60% to 80% in business. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Holy shit. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. On top of the slowing business, up to 60, 80%, the ingredients have gone up by as much as 37%. So 11% increase on excise tax, 37% increase on cost of goods. And let's be generous and say a 30% decline in business, there ain't much money left to survive. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Which begs the question, what the hell are the Aussies drinking? Because I know those people haven't stopped drinking. I've met a few Aussies in my life, and none of them have been sober. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Well, Jeremy, I'm going to give you a little hint. Similar to the American consumer. Would you like to guess? [00:15:08] Speaker B: They found Jesus. [00:15:10] Speaker A: No. Premixed RTD alcoholic drinks, as well as a boost in mainstream beer because the consumers are trying to be more frugal and save money because of the rising inflation. Um, which I was like, oh, man, they really are just kind of fucking mirroring us. [00:15:40] Speaker B: They've always been know, like almost America. The big fans of barbecue and terracing all over barren stretches of land, shooting random wildlife. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but the thing is over there, all the wildlife can kill you. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. Well, except for the kangaroos. [00:16:09] Speaker A: Jeremy, I'm pretty sure a kangaroo would beat your ass bloody. [00:16:14] Speaker B: But. But relatively safe versus everything else on that crawls across that true. [00:16:26] Speaker A: It's the least deadly thing that you'll encounter, I think. [00:16:29] Speaker B: Nicer than a koala. Those little bastards are vicious. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Way nicer than drop bears. But it kind of talked in how back in 2015, the Sunshine coast had one brewery. Now it's Australia's craft beer capital. And they've got the highest per capita number of craft breweries anywhere in Australia. And this is where they're truly seeing most of the slowdown. And they're reaching out to the government to try to be a little bit easier and provide some relief for these small mom and pop breweries and encouraging customers to get out to the local tap rooms, drink local made beer from either the source or from the pubs and bottle shops that they frequent. Otherwise, Australia may go kind of dark with their craft beer. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Lay off the RTDs, too. I mean, Christ, if you cannot muster the will to mix a cocktail, I understand them in like a their. I don't know how fucked up their laws are, but I understand them in a setting here where they are kind of a workaround, a liquor license. But if you're buying the whiskey and. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Coke to take home and drink at home. [00:18:08] Speaker B: You are a worthless slug. I'm sorry, I can kind of get. [00:18:13] Speaker A: The more complicated cocktail ones, but if it's a two ingredient one, like the gin and tonics or the whiskey and Coke, I'm like, if you can't figure out what's in a whiskey and Coke, I don't think you should be allowed to drink. [00:18:27] Speaker B: You're probably one of those assholes who actually bought the peanut butter and jelly mixed together in one container, going, oh, thank God. Free from the tyranny of having to open two jars. I had to walk to the kitchen and spend an extra 10 seconds on my feet. [00:18:46] Speaker A: It was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jeremy, what do we got next? [00:18:54] Speaker B: And then craft beer got as fucked up as the rest of the world news now. So what follows? I don't know what any of it means. I usually like to kind of frame things as part of a larger story of craft beer, but it's hard in this case, because it's really a bunch of interesting things tied together through the same brewery with no real way of bringing them together yet. So I'm going to talk about this, and then we'll get to where the story ends. There's going to be an awkward pause, and then we're going to go on to the next thing. What to take away from this. [00:19:28] Speaker A: It'll be just like Jeremy's first time. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Having sex, pretty much. It'll be like, well, we're done. Do you want a Coke or something? Do you want to knee a washcloth? I'm sorry about that. [00:19:44] Speaker A: There'd be so much. [00:19:48] Speaker B: It's been a, uh. So, armed forces brewing. They are originally out of Delaware, and they have been contract brewing up to this point, while raising funds to start up their brewery. More on that in a moment. But they seem to have found a home in Norfolk, Virginia. They quickly ran afoul the locals, and now Norfolk, it's home to one of the largest military bases, or Navy bases, to be specific, in the country. [00:20:18] Speaker A: And they got a Navy SEAL training facility there. [00:20:22] Speaker B: So why would a town that's heavily military be at ODS with a quote unquote military tribute brewery? [00:20:29] Speaker A: Well, so, Jeremy, it's pronounced. [00:20:34] Speaker B: It's not. [00:20:35] Speaker A: Yes. Nuffuck, nuffuck, nuffuck, nuffuck, Virginia. When I was there, because he kept saying nuffuck and I was like, so is it Norfolk or no? Fuck. And he's like, nuffuck. [00:20:52] Speaker B: I'm going to keep saying Norfolk. Norfolk. I can't even say it anymore. Norfolk. Yeah, Norfolk. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Basically, if you don't want to sound completely inbred, just say no. Fuck. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Okay, I'm going to continue pronouncing. Great. Now you know what? That city in fucking Virginia. [00:21:14] Speaker A: I got hammered there. I had a great time. [00:21:19] Speaker B: This comes from a couple of sources. The Virginia Mercury by an article by Jim Morrison, and the Fingers newsletter by Dave Infante. Dave Infante's work is a regular feature on this podcast, and fingers is kind of his pet project, talking about. It's basically a drinks industry newsletter. It's usually behind a paywall. This particular article is out in public because of he considers it important towards a public interest. He did fantastic work looking to this as well. I've also spent a lot of time on armed forces brewing social media, so a lot of this comes right out of their faces. So it started this summer when Governor Glenn Junkin put out a press release crowing that they had successfully competed among other states, Florida and Maryland, to establish a new home for armed forces brewing in Norfolk. It's worth taking a moment to talk about what Armed Forces Brewery is. All right. It's often compared to, like, black rifle coffee, but for craft beer, they are darlings of Fox News. The CEO has made several appearances there. They have a ridiculous promotional video that looks like what we would get if you enter the phrase patriotic beer makes woke angry into AI. It features Robert O'Neill, right? He's the Navy SEAL who claims to have been the one who actually shoot bin Laden. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Oh, that ginger from Montana. [00:23:03] Speaker B: This has earned him a bit of ire from the other SEALs who observe a tight silence. What they actually do in the field, so is they're really the only person who's talking about it. I guess you take him at his word. Listen, for my money, the loudest person in any group is most likely the one to be completely full of shit. I also recognize that as a SEAL, he could kill me with a cork cage off one of my fancy Belgian beers. So fuck it, he killed bin Laden. The video features him strutting around a nondescript warehouse with a silent woman with gigantic knockers, barely contained in what can only described as military themed fetish costumes. And during the course of the commercial, he dumps a can of, quote, piss spear into the toilet, blows that up with a grenade, calls in a drone strike against, quote, pretentious foreign brewery, makes fun of beer geeks, calling them slacker coffee house mithanthropes, and then disabling the offending connoisseur with a Vulcan neck pinch. [00:24:08] Speaker A: I have to watch this video now. [00:24:10] Speaker B: I thought about. You're definitely going to want to. I'm going to try to link to it on our social media. It's funny and fucking ridiculous, and it's a remarkable self parody. The message is basically, our beer is so good because we say it is. We're about America and boobs, and therefore you should. Well, again, I'm building to something, but we'll get to that in a moment. My point is, they claim to not pander to a specific political viewpoint, but that is pretty bullshit. I've watched it several times. I've watched a bunch of their other videos. Another one of my favorite is that same beer connoisseur is like laying in a field, reviewing one of their beers. Just laying in the field, like us beer aficionados or want to do, just out in a field somewhere. [00:25:14] Speaker A: Why the fuck did I miss this metamo? [00:25:18] Speaker B: He's reviewing their preamble beer, of course. Mistaking it for something like prima berries. I don't preamble berries. I don't taste any of the preamble berries. Don't like it, not woke enough. And then they chase him around the field with a tank. Because that's how we are in the world. We're just laying in fields rating beers on their relative wokeness. [00:25:53] Speaker A: What the fuck? [00:25:55] Speaker B: It's probably less funny if you're a Navy SEAL watching this and watching one of your own basically behave as a carnal barker for freedom boobs. But you know what? I digress. Governor Junkin was so impressed by something. Maybe the video, maybe the appearances on Fox News, maybe he just likes the company. But he wanted the brewery to build their home in his state, so he outcompeted other states for the honor, a turn of phrase that got Dave and Fonte curious. What do they mean by outcompete? He notes that it's not unusual for breweries to be used as political pawns because, to quote Infante in his piece, quote, voters like beer. Small breweries are often community hubs, and brewing jobs are hard to outsource. But as we've covered extensively, I don't know just now, craft Beer isn't exactly in its heyday, and Virginia has at least 344 breweries. That's how much that are registered with the Brewers Association. So why this brewery and what did they get? Exactly? That's when Dave Infante uncovered, quote, Project Sea Wolf, which was an adorable secret code name that the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Norfolk City officials used in reference to a project of trying to get a brewery to take over the location occupied by the former O'Connor Brewing Company in the Ghent neighborhood of Norfolk. Seawolf, strangely enough, is one of Armed Forces Brewing's brands paying tribute to the US Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. The project was started in February of this year, despite the fact that O'Connor Brewing was still in the facility, although it did state an attempt to vacate in July in March through Project Seawolf, which doesn't get any less ridiculous the more you say it. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the city of Norfolk developed a proposal that, among other things, cut them over $300,000 in tax breaks, which. That's a nice chunk of money for a brewery just starting out. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah, suck. Now, maybe the brewery I work for needs to start pandering a little and move to Virginia. [00:28:25] Speaker B: The Virginia Economic Development Partnership pointed out to Dave and Fonte that this deal was not like other deals offered to other breweries. They pointed out that they've offered a version of the same deal to Silver branch Brewing, and it was kind of on a per job basis, very simply. I mean, the deals are very complicated, but the short version is they basically get a tax break for every job they create in the community, and it's about $700 per employee that they plan to hire as production staff. That's a little bit important because it basically covers anything but tap room staff. So if you're not serving beer or waiting tables, you're production staff, by the way, including positions that are tended to be filled by somebody already within the company, like the CEO himself. But I digress. The difference is that Silver Branch offered the same deal, only got about six grand in tax breaks. So, yes, similar deal, but vastly different in scope. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Silver branch or silver bullet should have showed up with a fucking tank, all. [00:29:45] Speaker B: Of which is taxpayer money. And so you come back to the big question of why. I mean, a brewery isn't exactly a huge economic engine, and especially not anymore. At the best of times, these sort of tax incentives are questionable in whether or not they pay for themselves. And a brewery is kind of the idea that you're going to get that much in tax revenue on the backside is a little bit suspect. But again, why this one especially? Armed forces got a couple of strikes against it. First. It doesn't seem like the neighborhood wants it there, because, let's face it, armed forces brewing is a lot of things. Subtle is not among them. And when word got out recently that they were moving into town and a little sousant of what they were about, because it's not hard to figure out what they are, about 800 people filed objections to the brewery's application for required conditional use. And the city commission members then kind of turned on the governor and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and recommended a denial of their permits. Now, it will not surprise anyone to learn that a lot of this objection has a lot to do with the overt political pandering that comes out of and the borderline offensive statements. I'm going to say borderline after going through their social media. It's right wing nonsense. But there's a line, and that line is like overtly calling for the harm or even the exclusion of a particular group or whatever. It's very vague. There's definitely dog whistles there, but it's not over the line, I don't think. But a lot of it also swirls around O'Neill, who has spent most of his time mocking transgender people refusing to wear masks during the pandemic. Usual trollish Fox News masturbatory bullshit. But he's such a force that a lot of people assume that he owned and ran armed forces Brewing when in fact he was just a spokesperson or was, according to Armed Forces Brewing. He was removed as brand ambassador after an arrest in August in Dallas for public intoxication and misdemeanor assault of a security card, during which he probably used a racial slur. He's still part owner, though, and his own personal brewed the hard way video is still up. All right. But Andrew Copeland, a Norfolk resident and founder of the Craft Beer Professionals, he's led a lot of the opposition. He said he saw the booby video and found it a little in poor taste and then said, quote, once we dove deeper into the company and what they stood for and what their leadership represented, that's when it truly became something that I did not believe reflects the values of what we have in our wonderful community. But of course, borrowing a brewery from an opening in a neighborhood based on their political views, it's a dicey proposition, right? Eli Wilson, author of Beer and Society and How We Make Beer and How Beer Makes us, said in the article, quote, the companies and people drawn to craft beer. Sorry, try again. The companies and people drawn to craft beer champion a kind of authenticity. Often they are outspoken about their progressive social values. But that's not the only kind of authenticity. The view that my company is an expression of who I am and what I believe can be presented, and it certainly manifests on the other side of political spectrum. In short, it's a bit rich to welcome a brewery that holds one political view and not another. But at the same time, if one of those political views is we welcome all people, regardless of race, religion, gender and sexuality, and the other is, hey, butthead, I killed somebody famous. Look at these boobs. There's also a matter of, it's a complicated issue, is what I'm saying. But by the way, not the only issue at hand. Copeland also points out the fact that armed forces brewing has a goal of producing 500,000 to 700,000 cases of beer, which is nearly three times the production that at O'Connor's Peak and would cause problems in a residential neighborhood where the brewery is based. Never mind the fact that this is a brewery that never talks about their beer. And that brings me to one of the weirder aspects of armed forces brewing that actually, nobody really discussed. Okay. I spent a frankly idiotic amount of time going through their social media. I mean, any amount of time is idiotic, but I spent a fair amount. And behind all the blather, there's something strange. I know, for instance, that armed forces brewing has over 10,000 part owners. I know that for as little as. I know, for as little as $200, you, Tyler, you could be a part owner. I know that this brewery loves America and patriots. And patriots. And troops. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Is this a Ponzi scheme? [00:35:33] Speaker B: But I don't know anything about their beer. I think their flagship beer is what we discussed earlier, the preamble. And I think it's an American lager based on the pictures and their general demeanor. But I can't tell you for sure. And in every communication, their message is not come down to come down to our brewery, enjoy one of our fine, handcrafted America beers. At every stage, the message is, come, invest, and give us money. So I'm not saying that now. [00:36:09] Speaker A: I will. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Of course, it's not unusual for a brewery to crowdsource a startup. [00:36:15] Speaker A: And I've watched their preamble is a patriotic session. Lager. [00:36:22] Speaker B: American lager. Yeah. Where did you find that? [00:36:26] Speaker A: Their website. [00:36:27] Speaker B: Where did you really? I must have been on a different website, because the website I found for armed Forces brewing on the front page was invest in this company. [00:36:43] Speaker A: I went from Google straight to the R beer page. [00:36:48] Speaker B: I could not find the R beer page. Well, I'll teach me. [00:36:53] Speaker A: And then they have the Catshot American craft lager, the Special hops. No, I don't want to sign up for your newsletter. The IPA, the 2023 grunt, which is a double IPA. Death from above. A coffee Porter. Neptune's beer, which is a thrice Bach lager. A triple Bach, I'm assuming, like, a. [00:37:33] Speaker B: Doppelbach, but without all that German. [00:37:37] Speaker A: 12% to 13%. So I'm assuming a triple block. Well, there is a large button that says invest. Okay. [00:37:46] Speaker B: I somehow did not make it to that website, so maybe I was not clicking on the right things, but thank you, Tyler, for going. Oh, hold on. I found that. Yeah, that took me 5 seconds. What the hell is the matter with you? I was too entranced by the boob video, I guess. [00:38:05] Speaker A: The thing is, I am looking at, looking at their CEO on the Meet the thing exactly how I imagine. [00:38:18] Speaker B: Except. [00:38:18] Speaker A: For their head brewer. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you go down their list of about us and it's like about 80% glowery, muscular men, three women that look like they came off of Fox News, and then a couple of like one of these things, nerdy. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Skinny. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah, nerdy. And then a couple of skinny nerdy geeks who you imagine actually do the work anyway. All right, but my point was that through all their social media, it all seems to come back to invest. Now that's just one red flag. Now here's another one. It's touted as a veteran owned brewery. In fact, that's usually the cryon that's usually on Fox News. But here's the thing, they never served. Well, here's the thing. The CEO and founder, Alan Beal, he's not a veteran. Now, he's quick to point that out. And he then goes to, he then talks about the 10,000 owners who. Okay, yeah, I'm sure some of them are veterans. 4% is owned by O'Neill, who's definitely a veteran. But the whole shtick about being veteran owned. But having that large of an owner base doesn't mean anything because any brewery about that size could be veteran owned. If you have that many owners. [00:40:02] Speaker A: I like when I clicked on his little profile, it's like he comes from a four branch military family. His grandfather, father, brother, nephew, two uncles and several cousins all served in these branches. [00:40:17] Speaker B: But he didn't listen. Do you need to be a veteran to start a military tribute brewery? No, I suppose not. It's weird. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Seems a little disingenuous. [00:40:28] Speaker B: It'd be a bit like if I opened a sports bar. Like, could I do it? Sure. There's nothing preventing me other than my complete lack of experience, knowledge, or, let's be honest, interest in the whole basis of the project. You'd be rightly assuming that I had some sort of ulterior motive besides my love of sports all of a sudden, and this is a bit of personal commentary, I'm also very suspicious of any company who produces nothing but content saying that they're going to produce some really awesome stuff and make money by convincing people to invest in a company that will someday produce something really awesome stuff. Now just give us money. To which you might argue, Jeremy, doesn't that basically describe every tech company ever? To which I would reply. Where do you think the suspicion comes producing? I mean, they've been contracted brewing for a. They're again. But I was looking for the about beer page or where you could buy their beer. I couldn't find it. Could you find that? [00:41:29] Speaker A: Yes. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Cool. [00:41:30] Speaker A: You can find it. [00:41:31] Speaker B: Do my research for me. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Hey, normally I'm the unprepared. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Oversight. Oversight, that is my bad. [00:41:42] Speaker A: You can currently find it in Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Florida. They are approved in all the military base of the APHIS. You can also find it. And they said they were approved in Walmart, Windixie. [00:42:02] Speaker B: And one other thing that makes sense. [00:42:09] Speaker A: And you can order it online. [00:42:15] Speaker B: So I guess at this point in time, the final say goes to the Norfolk City Council, which plans to vote on the issue in December Twelveth. It'll surprise exactly nobody that Beale has stated that when slash, if the permit is not approved, he intends to sue. Because of course he is. But even if he does get his way, I don't know how far brewery is going to make it when a decent cross section of the neighborhood doesn't want them there. I mean, ask ten Barrel or Melvin how well that works. [00:42:50] Speaker A: Right? [00:42:53] Speaker B: And not to mention the jab at the feckless hipsters who. Okay, you're a craft brewery that doesn't want anything to do with people who. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Really like beer, spend money on beer. [00:43:04] Speaker B: I understand that beer snobs are an infuriating bunch, and they'Re not necessarily the same group of people as people who just love beer, but there's a decent crossover. And again, who are you marketing to? Exactly. [00:43:19] Speaker A: What'S hilarious. So I clicked on the head brewer about page. Dale Lazar is the head brewer for Armed Forces Brewing Company at their flagship location in historic Nelfuck, Virginia. He is one of the few registered journeymen in Brewing, as recognized by the Department of. [00:43:48] Speaker B: The. I think I realized the problem in my approach was. [00:43:53] Speaker A: They'Re boasting that their flagship is already in. Their flagship brewery is already in Virginia. [00:44:03] Speaker B: It seems to be a little premature, but I suppose they're probably pretty confident that it's going to go in. I mean, they've been guaranteed $300,000 if they do. And it's hard to say this far away, and just from reading about it, what the likelihood of one way or the, of which way or the other the city council is going to vote. And by the way, that might be Project Sea Wolf. Might just go find them another spot. Who knows? And that's, I guess, where we leave this for now. I mean, armed Forces brewing. I don't know. It might be a cynical Ponzi scheme that's capitalizing on the culture wars just long enough to run off with money and a few thousand credulous Fox News Adel dupes, maybe. I think I've hit it enough over the course of this piece. That's the way I'm leaning. Tyler, I think you said it outright. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:12] Speaker B: I think the problem how I approached that was I was like watching their social media and then clicking on the links from them and those links led me to a buy page. So I don't think I just Googled Armed forces brewing outright. That was my strategic mistake. I was following the link they wanted me to click instead of. [00:45:40] Speaker A: And they probably didn't know how to properly redirect it. [00:45:46] Speaker B: I just kept on finding one. I'm like, all you can do is invest in the company. They were clearly producing beer, but I couldn't find where or how much. But I guess if you are on an Air Force or on a military base, including an Air Force base, rather go enjoy. Let us know how it is. I'm a little skeptical of a brewery that seems to have at least, least seem to enjoy antagonizing beer geeks or maybe just us feckless leftists. I don't know. Regardless of the decision of Norfolk City Council, I can all but guarantee this is not the last rule here of armed Forces Brewing Company. And I guess cue the awkward pause. Tyler, you have anything for us? What's next? [00:46:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to stick in the south and, well, Virginia is not really the south, but close enough. [00:46:50] Speaker B: South of the Mason Dixie line. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Close enough. [00:46:55] Speaker B: They were on the right side of the Civil War, unless you're with armed forces brewing, and then you'd probably take issue with the right side of the Civil War. But I digress. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Good beer hunting came out with an article talking about the guy who brought beer and craft beer and really built the start of the beer culture in New Orleans. And his name is David Stein, or Dan Stein. He owns Stein's Market in Deli. He's from Philadelphia. And this is actually one of the two spots that I was disappointed I didn't go to while I was down there in New Orleans. I'd been told about this little deli sandwich shop from this Northeast guy who was kind of rough grumble from Ben, one of the guys who listens to this podcast. He's like, you go in this awesome little deli sandwich shop, he's like, they got a shitload of beer from all over the country and all over the world. And then if there's something you don't see on the shelves in there, you go out back, walk through, like, this little yard, and there's shed back there that has even more beers to choose from. [00:48:20] Speaker B: The kitchen in the old buildings. [00:48:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And so he's like, dude, you got to go check it out. Was really over near Magazine Zine street one time, but we had taken an Uber over there, and so they cut over to where we were going to eat, cut around it. And so basically, I went further past it, but didn't realize how close I was, or else I would have just walked to it. So missed out on going there, but we're going to give you a little backstory on it and how this Philadelphia kid who became a lawyer, decided to stop practicing law in Philadelphia, move to New Orleans two months after Hurricane Katrina with no job, get a job working for a couple restaurants and a cheesemongering business. Basically started to do some of the alcohol buying while he was there, and really started to enjoy it. Started to read as much as he could. He knew the craft beer industry was emerging from being in Philadelphia and other parts of the country, but Louisiana just really didn't have any craft beer at the time. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Whereabouts is this place? Like, is it French Quarter or further north? [00:49:57] Speaker A: Be further west in the Garden District on Magazine Street. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Okay. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Which is funny, because when I went and got poboys from Mahoneys, Mahoneys is just a little bit further down Magazine street from Stein's. So he started falling in love with this, started really deciding, hey, I'm going to kind of do what I do best and try to make connections. Started making connections with breweries and distributors and importers and getting them to bring the product to the state and to the city so he could start buying it. And then people started coming in from all around. And with more people moving there after Hurricane Katrina, they were happy to see kind of the flavor of home. And it really started taking off and became kind of this gained this cult little following where people have asked him to officiate their wedding. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Wow. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Against advisement of his parents, quit being a lawyer to basically make sandwiches and sell beer. [00:51:32] Speaker B: That's a fair advice from the parents because you've already gone to school to be a lawyer. You've passed the bar, I assume, practiced for a little while, and you come home one day and like, hey, Mom, Dad, I've decided to leave all that behind and go make sandwiches. I think any parent would be justified in going, what are you insane? [00:51:58] Speaker A: Well, first. So he graduated from Temple University Law School. [00:52:05] Speaker B: That's barely a school. I have no fucking idea. [00:52:11] Speaker A: He got his undergrad from Wharton and then wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. So his dad convinced him to be a lawyer like him, went to Temple Law School, got that. Got, like, a super highly coveted job or internship right after school. That was a clerkship in Louisiana. He finished that up, moved back to Philadelphia to practice law for a private firm. And every Saturday and Sunday, would go to this breakfast spot, have breakfast by himself, then go to a cheese store, buy some cheese, head home, and then drive over to his parents house. Finally he said, I don't want to sit in an office wearing a suit and tie all the day. I want to get my hands dirty. So he walked into the cheese store in Philadelphia, asked for a job. Walked into the restaurant, asked for a job. They both hired him. And then he saw Hurricane Katrina hit and realized he didn't want to live in Philly. He wanted to get back to New Orleans, where he had spent some time during his clerkship, enjoyed the city, enjoyed it being a smaller city, and he'd rather be a big fish in a small pond, especially when that pond was trying to rebuild, when that pond was. [00:53:27] Speaker B: Flooded and a lot of the fish moved out. Rightly so. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Yep. So he moved down there, started working at a grocery store, bounced around to a few cheesemonger and beer buyer jobs at Martin Wine cellar and Whole Foods, where he learned how to stock beer. Like I said, he then really started diving in and figuring out. And he has a bed in his. The article talks about how he has a bed at the restaurant, because that's where he spends most of his. That's. [00:54:08] Speaker B: That's very lawyerish behavior. Like, I'm just going to set up a bed. Why. Why bother? [00:54:14] Speaker A: But he's kind of become this staple, and he's designed the restaurant to basically be in his image. I mean, there's Batman figurines, T shirts, memorabilia. There's posters from old campaigns, graduation photos. There's even a banner that someone made that said, smell the love Stein's Market in deli. [00:54:36] Speaker B: All right, but. [00:54:41] Speaker A: What is crazy is you expect, yeah, there's going to be some coffee in the deli. TherE's going to be potato chips, sandwiches, deli meat. But then I understand what a deli is. [00:54:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:55] Speaker A: Then there's all this huge beer selection from local breweries that he's tried to support. Rare European beers, bottles of chill wine, and then go out back and there's even more. And so it's really just exposed people in New Orleans who has a great. The city has a great drinking culture, but it's predominantly liquor and not so much beer. And so he's kind of created that beer culture, got really is kind of the person that spurred a lot of the craft beer revolution in New Orleans and got other breweries to start wanting to open in New Orleans. Starting to grow, because 20 years ago, only a beta and Heiner Brow represented the packaging breweries in Louisiana. Mississippi in Louisiana, and then Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia could only each boast one or two packaging breweries as well. Louisiana as of today, only has 40 craft breweries, placing it in 49th in the US by breweries per state and. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Capita, four below New Jersey. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Louisiana didn't break 49th double digits until 2013. [00:56:28] Speaker B: That does beg the question. So we've now, in the past couple of weeks, talked about the 45th and the 49th. What's 50th? [00:56:36] Speaker A: I don't know. I'm curious now. All right. [00:56:42] Speaker B: I'll bet it's Mississippi. Yeah, Mississippi or Kansas. [00:56:50] Speaker A: Maybe Alabama. [00:56:52] Speaker B: Okay, keep talking. I'll see if I can't find this real. [00:56:57] Speaker A: So with he's, like I said, he's become that staple. He's the godfather of New Orleans craft beer. And then COVID hit, making it harder for basically beer to be a mainstay where beer supply increased, demand slowed, and it was harder for distributed brands. And it forced him to actually reconsider how reliant he could be on beer. He's diversified his business a lot more, but he's not solely reliant on beer, which has helped him survive the pandemic, the craft beer bubble waning. And he said, craft beer is never going to be the profit center for this place. But the one thing I've been good at is knowing what's good. That's a great thing and a curse about working Here all the time. [00:57:56] Speaker B: All right, quick side note, the bottom of the barrel as far as breweries per capita, we talked about New Jersey. 46 is Georgia, 47 is Utah, 48 is Texas. [00:58:13] Speaker A: Oh, damn. [00:58:14] Speaker B: 49 is. Now, this is off a vine pair article from 2022, so it might have changed since then. 49 is Alabama, 50 is Louisiana, and 51, since they count the District of Columbia is Mississippi. All right, just a quick. Just take that little fact nugget home and enjoy it. [00:58:39] Speaker A: But if you ever find yourself in New Orleans, go stop by this spot. It's a spot where you could see a garbage man or a gutter punk sitting next to the mayor of New Orleans all being treated the same, enjoying a sandwich and buying some really cool beers. So if you're a beer nerd, go stop by Stein's. Who knows, he might even be behind the counter and you can meet his allegedly gruff personality. [00:59:10] Speaker B: Sounds like a treat. [00:59:13] Speaker A: I mean, he's from the northeast, from Philly. [00:59:17] Speaker B: They're famously a warm, cuddly bunch. [00:59:22] Speaker A: Jeremy, what have we got next? [00:59:24] Speaker B: Dude, we get it. People like you. You can stop news now. John May, the Internet's favorite raging alcoholic, is at it again. We talked about him earlier this year when he decided he was going to go out for. He's going to go out and drink 2000 beers in 200 days. He cleared it with some ease in October and was famously back at the pub the next day, which is an impressive commitment to liver destroying, I think we can all agree. Well, the problem is that over the course of that 200 days, when he started this whole thing, he was just a normal, run of the mill functional alcoholic. He'd get up in the morning, go to his job, go to the pub, drink ten fucking beers and go home. But since he's been doing the drinking on TikTok, that's become his job and the people want more. So now this is his life to continue with his livelihood, I guess he set the, I feel, very obtainable goal, given all things considered, of drinking ten beers every day for a year for a grand total of 3650 beers in one year. [01:00:42] Speaker A: I mean, does he already get the 200 days that he. [01:00:46] Speaker B: No, he's starting from scratch. He's starting from scratch as far as I can still. We're starting over again. Day one, beer. [01:00:54] Speaker A: One. [01:00:55] Speaker B: Here we go. Also, I picked this up from the lad news. They did point out it's actually a leap year, so it's actually 3660 beers. He didn't factor that in. But this is not a done deal yet, apparently. First he plans to race in the land's End to John O'Groats long distance cycle ride. Aren't British place names just the best? Just the John O'Groats. Anyway, that's what he's going to do, but only if he gets 500 pounds in his GoFundMe page to start funding his eventual liver transfer. So I guess once again, if you want a British man to do something incredibly stupid, go to his GoFundMe and good luck finding. I don't know, Tyler. You've already made me look like an idiot once tonight. You go find, see if you can't find John May's GoFundMe in the time it takes me to finish this rant, I could not fucking find it. Maybe I'm bad at the Internet. This could be. Watch this. Tyler will go up. Yep, there it is. I might just suck at this whole thing, but anyway, while he's doing that, I guess if you can find it. Well, actually what I found was several other men named John May who actually probably need your money a lot more than he does. I found a guy who's desperate for rent and food money while he's battling cancer. There's another guy who's, I think, battling some disease with a very long name and a horrible description of effects. This might surprise people. I'm not on TikTok, and trying to comb TikTok on your desktop computer is a bit of a bitch. And I can only watch so many videos of a drunk British guy slurring, who's not a frontman for a punk band. Before I just give up, I could not watch all that many. It's mostly him just talking, just describing his day, and he's usually half in the bag. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't find it. I just kept finding funeral. Funeral. I can't afford to live. [01:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, mostly GoFundMe stuff which enjoy that. As fun as the GoFundMe that get great publicity are go dredge through the ones that have no supporters, and there's just a dying guy who nobody cares about. If you really need that emotional boost through your day and then know that there are people going to go fund me to give a guy more money to drink more, that's our world. Everybody enjoy it. And I guess I don't know if you want to go do that. I don't know what you get. Maybe the warm, fuzzy feeling of buying a guy a beer that is just one of many that will lend him to an early grave. Although, of course, we also lost this week one of the truly great drinkers of our time. Or in fact, anytime. Shane McGowan, a man who probably inadvertently pulled off John May's challenge every year of his fucking life, sometimes before Easter, finally closed his tab in this world and was flung out into the gutter of the next. The gutter poet, a man whose drinking got him kicked out of an Irish band and makes a chronic alkali on TikTok seem like a Sunday sipper. A man whose face could only become a rock star because as a hobo, he'd probably starve. And yet his lovely prose clothed the dirty parts of humanity and made it vaguely presentable. He managed to limp to the ripe old age of 64. So I guess there's hope for John May. He could probably continue doing this. I think the last I checked was 29, so he's got a good 35 years ahead of him of this. In honor of John May and mostly Shane McGowan, some lyrics from the Pogues came to mind. So I hope you'll indulge me for a moment. A man's ambition must indeed be small to write his name upon a shithouse wall. But before I go, I'll add my regal scrawl and tell the world I'm left with sweet fuck all. Good luck, John. God bless Shane McGowan. Tyler, do you have anything to add besides a petition to have me never sing on this podcast again? [01:05:59] Speaker A: The only thing is, if you're looking for the craziest Miller High life Christmas decoration, do I have that for you? Miller High Life is they stopped and thought, what is it that our customers truly want? And they went, you know what? Let's do this giant neon tree with the little lady on the moon as our tree topper so they can decorate their house with it. And then they stop and they said, nah, a two and a half foot light up neon tree isn't just what they need. We want it to smell like their favorite dive bar. [01:06:47] Speaker B: I mean, that makes sense as I'm thinking about putting the Miller high life ornament on top of my Christmas tree, and I would actually like to right now, just to see the horror of my wife's face, it would only add. [01:07:00] Speaker A: No, this is a whole neon Christmas tree with said topper. [01:07:05] Speaker B: Oh, it's the whole tree. [01:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:07] Speaker B: Oh, even better. Just as I'm putting that tree in the living room, having my wife go, oh, hell no, it smells like beer and butt. [01:07:17] Speaker A: Well, this light up neon Christmas tree has been infused with the scent of sweet tobacco. [01:07:29] Speaker B: I guess if you're talking about old school, here's the problem with dive bars. Throughout most of the country, throughout most of the country, we've outlawed smoking indoors, which is probably a good thing. But we now know what a dive bar smells like for two reasons. Number one, we're not smoking in there. We're smoking less or not smoking at all. And so our sense of smell works. And also, of course, it's not choked with tobacco smoke, so you can smell what that place smells like. I seem to remember an article, I need to find this again. It might be an urban legend, but bear with me. In New York, right after they enacted the smoking ban in a dive bar, they smelled something horrible. And as they're trying to figure out what the fuck that was. They brought it to the walls. They broke down one of the walls and found a man who had been missing for the better part of a decade. [01:08:30] Speaker A: Holy shit. [01:08:32] Speaker B: No one had noticed because basically his rotting corpse had been covered up by the stink of 100 people smoking every day. [01:08:41] Speaker A: Well, if you think I want a two and a half foot Christmas tree that smells like sweet tobacco in my house, the day this podcast is released, it goes on sale. So Friday, December eigth, and each highlight is priced at $120. But if you think two and a half foot is not quite big enough, Miller High life is also giving away a full size five foot tall version on Friday, December 15. And Miller Light does assure that all of these will arrive in time for Christmas. [01:09:30] Speaker B: I just imagine the kind of person that would ideally have a Miller highlife tree that reeks of tobacco. And actually you come to mind without the civilized look. If you were not married and did not have a child and you were left to your own devices, that's what would happen. That's exactly what would happen. [01:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah, probably not. [01:09:57] Speaker B: But being married and kids are a civilizing influence, and that's a good thing because shit like this is what we would do given complete freedom. You know it, I know it. [01:10:11] Speaker A: Probably. [01:10:12] Speaker B: I probably wouldn't have that tree, but mine would be so much worse. [01:10:19] Speaker A: I'm like, I don't know if I want my house to smell like tobacco the whole time. [01:10:24] Speaker B: You're too young to have really had a lot of time smoking in a dive bar. That's the problem. [01:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I mean, I remember, fuck. When as a kid my parents used to smoke and going into a restaurant and they'd be like, smoking. You're non smoking. [01:10:42] Speaker B: I vaguely remember that too. [01:10:44] Speaker A: And really it was just like a slightly higher wall, but not like a full wall separating the two sections. So it did absolutely nothing. Right. [01:10:56] Speaker B: At best, the opposite end of the restaurant. Yeah. Then there was my parents who, they didn't smoke, but they also didn't care. And so it was a lot of times there was like smoking or non smoking? Non smoking. Oh, that'll be a 30 minutes wait. Oh, well, do you have something in the smoking section? Yeah, let's go over there. Okay, we'll go the smoking section. We don't give a fuck. Look, I don't care if a little one gets asthma. I don't want to wait 30 minutes. [01:11:23] Speaker A: You'll be fine, kid. [01:11:26] Speaker B: Try to breathe so much. Try not to breathe so much. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Fucking cures cancer, right? [01:11:36] Speaker B: It's a wonder our parents survived their childhood long enough to have us. [01:11:43] Speaker A: Truly a miracle. [01:11:46] Speaker B: Anything else for us tonight? [01:11:48] Speaker A: That's it for me. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Well, this has been. It's all beer. If you'd like to get a hold. I apparently owe you some videos if I can find a way to post them on our social media. Look forward to some of the highlights from armed forces brewing and also what we're drinking today. Truly awful. Ironically, it's like, I have to post this beer, but why am I going to post the one? I've been bad at that lately, so I haven't posted the last couple of beers that I've actually quite enjoyed. This one is awful. And I'm like, I got to post this one. That's also the culture we live in. But you can see what we're drinking on our Instagram. You can also find us on Facebook. You can send us an email if you'd like to let me know how to fucking use Google. You can find that. It's [email protected]. [01:12:45] Speaker A: He won't know how to check it. [01:12:47] Speaker B: That's true. I don't. There was one point I try to check about once a week, and then there was one week I forgot. And that was like, the one week we actually got an email and it was a guy who was trying to throw a party for Anchor Brewing who wanted us to promote, like, he had wanted to buy a bunch of kegs for Anchor brewing and wanted us to help him promote that party. I'm like, you are really overestimating our reach. [01:13:24] Speaker A: We can get probably, like, four people. [01:13:27] Speaker B: There, including us, except for it was in San Francisco, and I don't know where people listen. [01:13:34] Speaker A: How the fuck did he find us? [01:13:37] Speaker B: I really don't know, to be honest. We maybe have one listener in San Francisco in which. Hi. Welcome. Thank you for the offer. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you at the time. It was 14 days when I got that email, so I hadn't gotten back to you after that. So, yeah, sorry. Two things. Number one, thank you, but you are drastically overestimating our reach. And two, no, thanks. I don't think we're going to let it die. It'll rise again like a magnificent Phoenix or some other city in Arizona. So if you'd like to send me an email that would languish the box for, like, 14 days before I finally don't send me anything pressing, I guess that's what I'm texting. But you can send that to. It'sallbeer [email protected] and you can leave us a rating on iTunes or Google or Google Podcasts or Facebook or whatever. If you'd like to comment on any stories or send some stories our way, you can go ahead and do that, and that'll be quite enough for us. I'm Jeremy Jones. [01:14:55] Speaker A: I'm Tyler Zimmerman. [01:14:56] Speaker B: I'm a beer. [01:14:57] Speaker A: Have fun. Understand.