From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S4 Episode 1: Rob Todcast

• Allagash Brewing Company • Season 4 • Episode 1

Share episode

It's our 30th Anniversary as a brewery and our 4th Anniversary as a podcast. So we're celebrating both with Allagash Founder Rob Tod, and Allagash Brewmaster Jason Perkins.

That's right! It has been 30 years since Rob started Allagash Brewing Company in the corner of a warehouse on Industrial Way. And we're taking a refurbished Vermont Gas Company van-ride down memory lane to talk about the origins of Allagash White, the early days of the brewery, long hours, hard work, and fun that was had. So crack an Allagash White (we did) and enjoy this exploration of the origins of Allagash Brewing Company.

Brett:

I kind of want to crack

Rob:

this on

Brett:

the air,

Rob:

but I also want to start drinking.

Brett:

You crack it. Go ahead. I'm going to crack mine. Get in the zone. There you go. Get in the zone. This is actually just an AutoZone ad. Awesome. I'm going to save mine because I want to do it at a certain time. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. All right, this is from Maine with Love, an Allagash Brewing podcast where we talk about beer, our community here in Maine, things that generally make us happy, and this is a momentous one. It's season four, episode one. And we have here Rob Todd. founder and brewer of Allagash, Jason Perkins, brewmaster, VP of brewing operations, Liz Wilson, our marketing manager. Me, Brett, Senior Communications Specialist, and we're here to celebrate...

Rob:

I think this is

Brett:

my first appearance. Is it? It took us four seasons. Is that true? Or at least I haven't put on too many of them. I was wondering when you were going to say that. Where's the love?

Rob:

You guys say for me and the love, but

Brett:

I'm not getting any. We've borrowed Rob from the show. I've been on like 15 or 20. Yeah, and Jason's kind of the co-host at this point. But we're here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Allagash, and that's why I saved my can crack, so I could do... 30th anniversary. Amazing.

Rob:

Cheers.

Brett:

Cheers. Cheers. All right. Cheers. Cheers one more time. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Rob:

Cheers. I already opened mine because I couldn't wait, so that's why you didn't hear another pop. That's good. That's good.

Brett:

All right. So we'll start with the secret question, as we always do, which is kind of funny because you both don't know any of the questions we're going to ask you, so they're all secret anyway. But this is a fun one to start with. So start with you, Rob. What is the best wave you've ever surfed?

Rob:

Ooh, I know the answer to that. When you said secret, I was like, is he going to ask me the secret spice? You don't have to ask me that question. No, no, no, no. I, you know, well, Matt, our buddy Chipper Bro, who works for Patagonia, he introduced me to a woman who is a surf instructor in Ventura. And I connected with her for a surf class to paddle a spot that was kind of difficult to get to. Point Doom, not D-O-O-M. Oh, I was going to say. That's so exciting. That's a rough first week. Yeah, just kind of outside of L.A., but– She met a friend of hers there who has access to this beach and it's an amazing point break. And I mean, as you know, I'm a terrible surfer, but I can occasionally catch a wave here and there. But there was only about six people in the water for this point break in LA. And it was amazing, like chest high day, super easy to get in wave. And we paddled out and it was just all super friendly. She knew everyone and a wave came along and she's like, grab this one. So I hopped in it. And I just went and went and went and went and went. That's awesome. Yeah, it was amazing. And actually halfway along the way, if I looked back, and her friend who lived there, he had caught a wave. He was body surfing. So he looked up at me and yelled. He was waving and having a good time. And I was on my board. So it was fun.

Brett:

All right, Jason, what's the best concert you've ever been to? Oh, wow.

Jason:

Could just be most memorable? No, I have an answer for you. I'm not so sure it was the best as much as it's like, It's basically my first concert without any parents involved. And I was 16 in Vermont. And me and three of my buddies drove to Burlington, which is about an hour and a half. And I just got my license. We had this old conversion van. My parents were hippies. So it was like this old conversion van. They let me take it. So we all piled in and drove to Burlington and saw... living color

Brett:

whoa

Jason:

like cult of personality yeah so it was right when that album came out and like they were you know hot band and whatever and i had never been to a really i'd been to like folk concerts and bluegrass concerts and stuff like that with my hippie parents and so it was the first time i went to an actual rock and roll concert as a 16 year old and saw the party scene and everything and kind of my mind just got totally blown

Brett:

That's awesome.

Jason:

That's awesome.

Brett:

That's pretty awesome. That is a good one. Yeah. I got one for you.

Liz:

You do?

Brett:

Yeah. Just a quick one. Wicked. What are you thinking? You like Wicked? I love it. Okay. It's out there. It's popular. It's going to be popular. Yeah. I hear a lot of it around my house, too. Sorry. There you go. Okay, good. Thank you.

Liz:

Okay, Brett.

Brett:

Yeah.

Liz:

What's your favorite Maine outdoor adventure?

Brett:

Oh. I'm going to honestly say, I think... It's the trails. It's the trail systems we have here around Portland. It's not like the grandest outdoor adventure, but I think the availability for everyday use of all these trails is actually one of my favorite things about being here. You don't necessarily take it for granted, but I feel like every time I go out on a trail, I'm like, oh, that's nice. I needed that. That was good.

Rob:

I got a question. What season and episode are you most excited about for your podcast?

Liz:

Oh, I thought I was like White Lotus just starting

Brett:

this season. The wire. No, this one.

Liz:

Yeah,

Brett:

definitely this one. I was hoping you'd say that. We've been building up to it for four years. And it's a perfect segue. So the first question is a little bit open-ended. Allagash Brewing Company is celebrating its 30th anniversary. What is the first thing that pops into both your minds when you hear that?

Rob:

It's a lot of silence.

Brett:

It was a happy silence, not a sad silence. There's so much that's happened over the

Rob:

last 30 years. I

Jason:

don't know. I guess a little bit like it's one of these surreal time frames where it's like on the one hand, when I started out, I guess it seems like forever ago, but on the other hand, it's like where the hell did the time go? So I guess that's my where the hell did the time go? How did we get to 30 years? That's crazy. It's not been 30 years for me personally, but

Brett:

it's

Jason:

been a long

Liz:

time.

Brett:

It's pretty close.

Rob:

Yeah, I was just digging through pictures a couple weeks ago. And looking back at some of those pictures from the 90s, you just kind of forget about that stuff until you see the picture.

Brett:

Yeah.

Rob:

So it is kind of cool. Yeah. having an opportunity to go down memory lane and think about the days. I got a ton of pictures building the brewery. They're kind of boring because there's no one in the pictures because I was the only one there. And so basically the only picture is when I dropped whatever I was doing and got a camera and took a picture of a tank or a drainage trench I had just cut in the floor or something like that. But as we get into the 1996, 7, 8, there are people in the pictures. There are a lot. You know, a lot more fun and interesting.

Liz:

What would Julie and Betsy say about 30 years if we asked them? We get the pleasure of seeing them a few times a year at events. And I'm sure as you think back, 30 years go from kids to adults with your families. Yeah, I

Rob:

mean, one of the pictures I found was a picture of Betsy and I in our tasting room, if you want to call it a tasting room back then. It was kind of just a corner of the warehouse with one tap sticking out of the wall. And I'm looking at us, I'm like, wow, we look very young. That was before we had our girls. And then I remember Betsy bringing the girls in and running Eliza when she was a couple years old up and down the hall in my office chair.

Brett:

Yeah,

Rob:

but she's been right there over the last 30 years. And You know, obviously I wasn't around a whole lot the first 20 years. You know, it definitely was a, it was all consuming. Yeah.

Liz:

Yeah.

Rob:

Totally.

Liz:

I love seeing Betsy. I also, I love that.

Rob:

Hopefully she's coming by tonight for the, I know she's got a board meeting in town for an organization she works with. But yeah, I'm doing the maple syrup thing and hopefully Betsy will be by and Greta and Eliza. That's amazing. That's

Brett:

super

Rob:

cool.

Jason:

Yeah, I mean, Julie, my wife Julie, was very much a big part of Allagash in the early years. My eldest kid is 19, and I've been at Allagash for 26 years. So there was that time frame before we had kids where– and Allagash was teeny, and so– Like every event we did, like a brew fest or a dinner, she'd be there behind the booth pouring. I think a lot of people probably thought she worked for Allgash for a period of time there. And then, of course, little kids came along and we got busy. And so she was very patient with me as the breweries was requiring me to be around and so on. But I think the other thing she'd say if she was here is like there was a period of time where she knew every single person by name and by last name and everything. And then she'd start coming to– brewery gatherings and being like, who are these people? How do you have so many people here? Yeah,

Rob:

because there were so many years where there was only like five of us or eight of us. I mean, for years and years and years. So definitely Betsy and Julie knew everyone and were at all the holiday parties. And now there's 130 of us. And we're all working different shifts and working in different parts of the country. So, yeah. Yeah. Evolution. But they're still there. It's tough being married to a beer guy. It's really all-consuming, especially in the early years. I was coming into work at 5 or 6 in the morning and not getting home to 8 at night. Thank heavens Betsy was the one that was there cooking for the kids and making sure they were off to school. Just amazing support for me, for sure.

Jason:

Luckily, both of them are fans of what we make here, so that makes it a lot easier. That is helpful. If my wife wasn't as big a fan of Allagash beer, I might be in a lot more trouble.

Brett:

It's something you hit on too, Rob. You've said it before in other interviews, but the unglamorousness of those early days of this kind of you look at it now, the big brewery and everything. I think a lot of the people looking— they look up to what it's, what has happened, but it all came from those long years of work. And like, I think this is, this goes kind of before that, but Allagash White took you how many tries before you felt that it was right?

Rob:

Well, you know, I, I took a, I think pretty unique approach when I started, I didn't have a whole lot of experience in the beer business. I had one year at Otter Creek and then I was building Allagash for one year. And, you know, I can't sell anything that I'm not like very, very proud of and feel very, very good about. So I figured rather than try to come out of the gate with five or 10 different beers and not be 100% happy with them, I was just gonna focus on one beer, just Allagash White, draft only, local Portland market only, just keep it simple. I did a ton of test batches with Allagash White. And then that's literally all we brewed I don't know for how many months, but months and months and months. And I still haven't even heard of a brewery that's taken that approach and kept it that simple. So I was just, and we were just able to spend like so much time like diving into this one beer. We got it pretty close, pretty quickly. I mean, I would say, honestly, I mean, we started selling beer. Our first pint was sold on July 1st of 95. I really got it where I wanted it by November of 95. And I mean, I get asked all the time, does it taste the same as it buzzed back then? And the answer is it tastes exactly the same today, is it did back then when we actually kind of nailed it. But we only nailed it maybe 10% or 15% of the time back then because we were brewing with a bunch of dairy equipment. We had a lab. I mean, the very first batch went through a lab program, but it was– very, very simple, obviously, compared to what our lab is now, which is a state-of-the-art lab. But when we actually got it tasting the way... When I felt like, man, we nailed this, tastes the exact same today.

Brett:

And

Rob:

tastes and aromas, those experiences are something you remember for your whole life. We can all taste something that automatically brings us back to an experience we had 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And yeah, so it tastes the same, same experience. But we nail it now. Yeah. 99.99% of the time. Yeah. Totally. That's

Liz:

a better percentage. Yeah. Better than 10. Yeah. How did the two of you meet?

Jason:

I can take this one. I... So I was working at Gritty McDuff's in Freeport, a little bit of Portland, brewing for them. And I was hired by them for a period of time. It was what they told me right from the get-go because this is back for those listening to this who– Remember, Gritty's Halloween Ale was like this beast of a beer. There was more beer than they made at any other beers, and so I was hired for that time frame. But I was told, you're just going to be here for the fall while we make this beer, and then we don't need you anymore, basically. So I started looking around for other brewing jobs, and I knew of Allagash White, but this is 98 when I was knocking on doors, and I literally knocked on Allagash door. and walked in and met you and Ned. It was Rob's first full-time employee. I had a paper resume in my hand, of course, and gave it to him. I don't remember exactly how it went, but my memory is it was something more like, I'm looking for a brewing job. Do you need help? We might.

Brett:

Yeah.

Jason:

Sure. And then two days later, I was working a couple days a week. It probably wasn't quite that simple, but that's my memory of it.

Rob:

Yeah, you

Jason:

started

Rob:

part-time for a little

Jason:

while. Yeah, I started a couple days a week, January of 99. And then I think by the spring or summer, I was full-time. But back then, it was like brew white on Monday, filter white on Tuesday, Package white on Wednesday. Thursday, sweep the floor. Maybe wash a few kegs. Yeah, wash a few kegs. That kind of thing.

Rob:

Everyone did everything back then. It was all hands on deck pretty much when we did anything because there was only four of us at the time.

Liz:

How did you know you needed some extra help? You were still digging trenches and– Finding dairy equipment. I

Rob:

think there wasn't a whole lot of great planning back then. We would just get to the point where when we were completely overwhelmed and didn't have enough help to literally get things done, we would hire someone. And no one wanted to work back then. I mean, Jason remembers very well. I mean, we'd put want ads in the paper. And I mean, you can't believe some of the people that came in the door. Yeah. You know, literally no one wanted to work there. I mean, and we had a ton of people that would, you know, show up, fill out the paperwork. Of course, the training regimen was not very thorough back then. And I mean, we had some people that would work for like two days and then just leave halfway through the day. Remember that guy? Not even the full day. The guy in the bottling line. He worked like on a Monday. We hired him like Monday morning. He worked Monday. And then Tuesday, I'm sitting in my office, which was near the front door. And at about 1030, you know, no one came by the brewery back then. Like 1030 in the morning, I heard the door close. I was like, huh? You know, kind of thudded close. I went out and there's a pair of boots in our, you know, air quotes, break room. And I went out to the packaging line. And I don't remember his name, Steve. But I was like, hey, you know. Where is Steve? And Jason Scott said, oh, he went to the bathroom. I'm like, I don't think he went to the bathroom. He's gone. So I went and put my boots on and went out on the bottling line. But, like, yeah, no one wanted to work back then. I mean, the brand obviously isn't anything like what it is today. It wasn't recognizable. We were very, very small. It was tough work. I mean, the brewery was especially– During the summer, it was between 100 and 110 degrees in there. No exaggeration. 100% humidity. Squeegeeing floors, hot, wet, manual. People were not queuing up for a job in Allagash

Liz:

back then. I bet your resume is pretty dusty, though.

Jason:

Very. Yeah, I was actually trying to find a copy of it not that long ago, like six or seven months ago, like the one that I probably gave. Oh, that was so good. I couldn't find it. It's probably sitting in a file somewhere. We might have it in a file. That would be pretty funny. I'd probably be humorous to see what I said on that thing back then. Oh, I'd love to see that. That'd be so good. I'll see if I can track it down.

Brett:

And I was thinking, too, thinking of people not necessarily wanting to work. It's like craft beer was such an unknown entity at that point, too. So it had to just be this like... Working beer, like that doesn't, you know, it didn't even compute, I'm sure, for a lot

Jason:

of people. Well, I'll even say with like visitors, like tourists, like now, today, like- What we experience with tens and thousands of visitors a year and what other craft breweries experience, that just didn't happen. If the door, like Rob already said this when that guy left, but if the door opened at the brewery, it was like, huh? What's that? Who's here? And usually probably somebody lost, but it was such a different scene. No one was out visiting breweries for fun back then. It just didn't happen. Totally.

Brett:

Yeah.

Jason:

So in the early

Brett:

days, you might have already kind of covered this, but we've never asked this directly. In the early days, was there ever a moment where either of you thought, that's it, I'm done? I

Rob:

mean, not too many times for me, but definitely I remember one time pretty well when I was like, This is officially not going to work. There was definitely times, too, where we got turned down for loans when we needed equipment. There was one time where a loan got pulled. I think it was December 20th of– yeah, December 20th of 2005 or so years into it. And actually, Betsy– She opened the mail at home, and the letter basically just said, all your accounts are frozen. We're not going to honor any checks. I'm going to introduce you to your new loan officer. It was called in the special assets division, which is the workout guy. She opened the letter and called me, and she's basically like, what the heck is this? I'm like, I don't know. A couple hours later, I get the same letter at the brewery, and my loan officer wouldn't even talk to me. They patched me through to the workout guy. Wow. There were a couple times like that where I was like, maybe this is not going to work. I mean, for the first 10 years, we didn't get a whole lot of good news. We did win a gold medal. This is how few times we got good news. We won a gold medal in 1998 in the World Beer Cup for Allagash White. That was one nugget of good news in the first 10 years. I'm kind of struggling to think of any others. You know, usually when the phone rang, it wasn't someone telling us we just won something. It was someone saying, we're not going to send you malt until you pay. It was more calls like that. But, you know, I'm bullheaded and I, you know, it's... It's not easy in the beer industry now. The beer industry, it's tough. But I spent the first 10 years in a tough environment. So this is nothing new to me. I

Jason:

mean,

Rob:

it was

Jason:

really hard work back then. And pay was really low. I'm not going to use numbers. But it was hard work and all the things that Rob already said. And there were moments where I was like, can I do this forever? the rest of my life. Yeah. But luckily, I'm also stubborn and just, you know, love the work and loved what Allagash represented even back then and just put my head down and kept doing it.

Liz:

I just saw the, there was a great article right up about Allagash and Rob and it was, was it, what year was like five kegs, it was like total. You sold like five kegs in the year or something like that. I think it was a month or something. And now that is shocking. It was so helpful to put it in a number because I'm like, yeah, it was small back then, but that was an interesting tidbit to even wrap my head around.

Rob:

Yeah, I mean, I don't even know how many kegs we sell in a month now. I mean, what would it be 10,000, 10 to 15,000 kegs a month. And I literally remember, and Jason probably remembers, I'd go into our cooler and if there was 16 kegs stacked there, for like 10 days, I would start to stress out. Like, how am I going to unload these like 16 kegs? I still can't get my arms around when I go over to our logistics center right next door over here. I start a lot of my days over there. We've got an amazing team. And sometimes I go over there and I'm like, hey, you know what's happening today? And they're like, oh, we're shipping like 10 full trailers of beer to these distributors. We're receiving five trailers. I'm like, how is that even possible? I didn't know we made that much beer. Because I'm just still so used to those old days when you did a kegging run and kegged 30 kegs and that was it for two months sometimes

Jason:

yeah i have this very distinct memory of of multiple times where our northern maine wholesaler you know rustic beverage would pick up and you know they're an azure bush a wholesaler and so they'd show up at our dock in a 53 foot trailer and trailer would be full of bud yeah and we would have literally one pallet in the back that was like two layers of beer, like not even a full pallet. And it was just like so daunting to be like, I'm going to put this one pallet on this truck of Bud and Bud Light that's going to Northern Maine. And this is, you know, whatever, 15 cases, 18 cases of one layer Allagash white, one layer Allagash double. And that was it.

Rob:

And we sell a ton of beer up there now. It's an amazing market for us.

Brett:

Yeah. It's reminding me that there's like a truism of no one remembers you for your failures. They only remember you for your victories. And it just also reminded me of when I was in Detroit, I visited the Ford factory. And do you know what number Ford factory or what number company that was for John Ford who opened it? I'm guessing it wasn't number one. Number three.

Rob:

Was it Henry Ford?

Brett:

Sorry, Henry Ford. John Ford's the director. My bad. Yeah, Henry Ford. No, this is invalidating all my information. No, he opened up two companies that both failed, and then he opened up the Ford Motor Company, and that's the one that succeeded. It's that stick-to-itiveness of just sticking to it, and when it comes off, it seems like it was always going to be a success.

Rob:

Yeah, I think the stick-to-it thing is important because... I mean, Allagash White, I can't tell you how many times– because I believed in it from day one. Like a lot of other like really good friends of mine who were brewers who believed in us. And even though they're competing with us and wanted to see us succeed and distributors and retailers, they'd be like, Rob, like– why don't you brew something that's accessible, you know? And I was like, this is the most accessible beer on the planet. Like this is unbelievable. It's, it's different. It looks different. It tastes different, has a unique aroma, but this is like as drinkable and sessionable as a beer style gets. Cause like I would drink it. I'd be like, you know, I want another, I want another just cause it was so sessionable. And I just, I didn't, it was hard for me to get it. And yeah, But we heard a lot of that for the first 10 years. But we stuck with it. And I'm really glad we did. And it's 85% of our volume now, Allagash White. And I'm still very confident that it still has a ton of potential. There's still a lot of people out there and retailers who just haven't discovered it yet.

Liz:

So delicious.

Rob:

Yeah.

Liz:

Was there ever a beer in the early days that was a total flop? Or like, did Rob, you like one? And Jason was like, that's not it. Yeah. Or Jason, you're like, this is also delicious. And Rob was like, no.

Rob:

Well, I remember, like, yes and no. I mean, we've always been, like, pretty thoughtful. And, I mean, after five years, we probably only released five different

Brett:

beers. Right.

Rob:

So we weren't, like, madly releasing beers. But I remember the first time we brewed the Grand Cru, you know, we wanted, like, a licorice character. And in a 15-barrel batch of beer, which is, like– That's 450 gallons of beer-ish, 500 gallons of beer. We added anise to give it the licorice-y character, and we added no more than a little mound in a palm. We ground it up and stuck it in, and oh my gosh, it was like an overwhelming licorice blast. bomb. Wow. And I mean, I don't even know if we were able to even blend that batch out. I don't think we did, no. We might have had to dump it, but the next batch we did, we went down to like a teaspoon and I think that one we were able to blend out, but that was even too much. And we literally got down to like three scars. Whisper anise at it? Yeah. So, you know, there's definitely been some things like that that have happened. Can you remember anything

Jason:

else? I was more thinking about the Curio story where, you know, Curio we started making in 2004, 2005. 2005, I think, is when we sold it for the first time. Sounds right. But at the time, we only had a couple beers, and we got these bourbon barrels in, and we were like, we had double, triple, and white. And I just remember us discussing what to put in them, and we ended up doing double and triple in bourbon barrels. And I just was like, why are we putting triple in a bourbon barrel? It's a golden colored beer. It's a delicate beer. Why are we wasting our time with it? What double is going to be it?

Rob:

I was asking myself the same question.

Jason:

Frankly, double was a mess. We never did it again. And Curio is a beautiful, amazing beer. It was kind of the opposite of what you asked. Right, right, right. If... If it would have been up to me, we never would have put that beer in the barrel. So I'm glad we did.

Liz:

We just bought that beer its own cake not too long ago. We sung it happy birthday. Yeah, 20 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just

Rob:

last year. We got another birthday coming up on Monday. We do, yeah. I was in a couple Saturdays ago. And I went back into the cellars, and I was chatting with one of our brewers, and I started talking. Because, yeah, you were mentioning, like, what do you think about from the old days? And I do. Like, now that it's the 30th anniversary, I'll walk around the brewery, and I'll be like, whoa, that tank. I got that in, like, March of 1995. But anyway, our first two fermenters, FV1 and FV2— I was like, I wonder if there's a manufacturer's label on there. And I climbed up a little ledge on a wall and looked at the label. It was March 3rd was the manufacturing date of 1995. Oh, my gosh.

Brett:

So I was like, we've got

Rob:

to have a little birthday party. Okay.

Brett:

We

Rob:

got an ice cream cake coming, like happy birthday, FV1 and 2. That's awesome. On Mondays.

Liz:

Never say no to a

Brett:

birthday cake. Oh, yeah, the cannon. The little

Jason:

mini cannon. Oh, you should bring in a cannon. Yeah. You should bring the cannon

Brett:

in. I think that was my first year working here, which was 2016. I think we did a cannon. And that was... Well,

Jason:

that

Brett:

reminds me of the old

Jason:

days, since we're talking about the old days. Rob used to think it was really funny to come into the brewery. Because back then, we would start brewing early in the morning, 5 or 6 AM. And it was only one person, usually me. And he would come in at whatever, 7 or whatever. And he'd come in with a package of firecrackers. And he'd throw them right near me and no one else. Because as we already discussed, the place is empty. No one's there. No one's visiting. And then the first thing I here is... You turn around and there he is laughing.

Rob:

I still think I've got some firecrackers in my drawer. I stole across those.

Brett:

A good 30th. Just start that back up, Rob. Just, yeah, it's a 30th anniversary. Oh, man. So we actually have some things that we've printed out, and they're not black and white intentionally. Our printer actually ran out of magenta ink, so I had to turn them black and white. But we'll put these pictures up on the blog after the fact. But I just wanted to get your reactions.

Rob:

If

Brett:

you want to react to it, Rob, you don't feel as though you have to. This is

Liz:

a photo of Rob standing on top of a van with two other people.

Brett:

Is that the van that you had, Rob? That was the van I lived in, yeah. Amazing. I

Jason:

love the speakers. Yeah, the speakers. Grateful Dead concert in Las Vegas. Were you cranking Grateful Dead out of the speakers too? Oh, for

Rob:

sure. Yeah, for sure.

Brett:

That's awesome.

Rob:

There was a guy right next to us. I don't know how I remember this stuff. His name was Ryan and he was funneling funneling beers during the day. Which I may or may not have participated

Brett:

in. How many years before the brewery was that?

Rob:

That was 1992 probably. So not that long before. Wow.

Brett:

91

Rob:

maybe.

Brett:

That's a great van. What's the number 59?

Rob:

So that was an old Vermont gas van. So I went to college in Vermont and my senior year I was like, after I graduate, I'm going to buy a van and I'm going to live in the van until I run out of money. Stock it up with

Brett:

ramen. You were so ahead of your time, Rob. Yeah,

Rob:

van life. Corned beef hash. I wanted to put a kitchenette in it, which I eventually did. So I went up to Burlington, and the cheapest van I could find was an old Vermont gas van. It had like 200,000 miles on it, and it was just empty in the back. So I was able to build it out with wood paneling and a bed, and we hung a little chandelier in it and got a kitchenette from an old VW. That's awesome. But yeah, it was a Vermont gas van. So all they did is they peeled the little flame off of the door, but the stripes were still there. The number 59 was still there. And you can see the flame after a couple of months because it was still sticky and it collected dirt. So it was just a little dirt flame.

Brett:

The flame kind of came back. Awesome. All right, we got this one. There's Jason in the corner of that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, running the old bottling line. Yeah, that was some double. Not to have to go through the entire thing, but how manual was bottling at that point in time?

Jason:

I mean, completely, 100% manual. You'd load the bottles on by hand, empty bottles, and usually the most efficient way was eight bottles at a time, but we all were competitive, so you tried 10, 6, or 12. But you'd spend so much time getting the 12 onto your fingers, it wasn't necessarily the most efficient way to do it, but it was fun. So then you load them on by hand, and then you see me in the picture. I'm monitoring the fill. So that part, I guess, was not manual because it did fill them, but then packing off was manual. like loading pallets was manual, all that stuff, yeah. But I mean,

Brett:

monitoring the fill, it seems like semi-manual because you're watching to make sure

Jason:

it's filled. For sure, and you had to watch because it had this, it filled four or six bottles at a time and had these fill heads that came down that were stainless steel. And if the bottles weren't perfectly aligned, it would just absolutely obliterate these bottles. And so if you were looking away and they didn't feed correctly, it would just, I mean, like, Not safe. Yeah. So you had this thing where you'd see it going and if you couldn't stop it, you'd just like turn your head and be like. Showered with glass. And then you'd have to spend, you know, 10 minutes cleaning it up to make sure there's no glass anywhere and so on. But yeah, I don't miss that. Good time. We'll

Liz:

take that picture back. See you later. Yeah, you can see in the

Rob:

picture. I mean, literally it's like you can see Jason on the filler. Probably doing what he was just describing. I'm looking away in the picture. Getting ready to get showered with glass. And then Ned, who runs New England Distilling, who we just saw like two days ago– he's pulling the bottles off two at a time, inspecting them, probably straightening the labels out, putting them in the box. And then probably at this time we were hot gluing the box, pressing it closed, holding it for a little bit, hoping you didn't drip hot glue on your hands and then stamping it, palletizing it, hand stretch wrapping it. And it would take all day to do four pallets. Like 250 cases was all day and not an eight hour day, like a 12 to 16 hour day.

Brett:

Wow. And those were– so in the color of the picture, those cases are red. Is that Allagash White? No. Oh, it's double. Okay. All right. That's what I was wondering. Okay. Didn't know it changed that much. All right. Then we got this one. Little Canoe. Oh, yeah. What circa is that from? So two people in Canoe. Where are you paddling? Canoe trip?

Rob:

That's the Dewey's Canoe trip. Yeah, that's the Dewey's Canoe trip. Yeah, so there's this great account in town, Dewey's, and every year they did– a event for, what was it? I don't remember. Kidney Foundation? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think Kidney Foundation. And we raised money. I'm not exactly, I don't recall exactly how, but we canoe down the Saco River. Actually, the guy in the front of the canoe, Mark Woodbury, good friend of mine, one of our really early Our first advertising firm, Woodbury & Morse, they came up with this idea. I can't say– I can't take the credit. They said– because we had no budget at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, well, why don't you strap a couple canoes to the top of cars, put a huge stuffed moose in one and a huge stuffed bear in the other in a sandwich board with a picture of a pint of beer and just like pay someone to drive around the old port?

Brett:

Yeah.

Rob:

And we did. And it actually was a really good campaign. And– Yeah, and then we used those same canoes for the Saco River trip.

Brett:

Wait, you would take them off the car and then actually float in them too? Well,

Rob:

this was probably a couple years after that campaign.

Brett:

Oh, wow. Did you fill in any holes or something? No, they were very functional canoes. Oh, you just strapped them

Jason:

down. I would always

Brett:

assume there was some sort of a drilling going on. Although,

Jason:

didn't one of the drivers drive it through an ATM

Rob:

one time? Yes. Yup, so it did end up with a couple holes because he drove through the ATM. He forgot that he had a big sandwich board sticking up like 12 feet above the ground and it just like... hammered the sandwich board into the canoe.

Brett:

All right, we got one last one. But it

Rob:

wasn't me driving the car. No, not Rob. No, literally, it was not me.

Brett:

Definitely someone else. All right, this is a segue into the next one. And so you have a floppy disk that says Allagash business plan written on it. Rob. Yeah, I still got it at my desk. I'm

Rob:

embarrassed to

Brett:

read the content of it. We were thinking about turning it into like a podcast, like a serialized, like discover the contents of it and what is on it. Does

Liz:

anyone have a device Bye. Bye.

Brett:

to help us recreate the canoe on top of the car to drive around. If you and Jason want

Liz:

to do a road trip,

Brett:

we should go road tripping out there. Are we going to borrow it from him?

Liz:

Flip it and

Brett:

make it a Ford Escort. Turn it into a sweepstakes. Get the Ford Escort. That's funny. Approved.

Rob:

Yeah, that picture is probably, this is the office that was up on the mezzanine. That space doesn't exist anymore. It's in our cellar space now where we have events. Oh, man, a bunch of members. are coming back for this one. But, I mean, that office was miserable. You can see there was a... The ceiling was about seven feet. When it rained, the ceiling leaked. It was hot. There was an old air conditioner in the window that was probably, you know, 30 years old at the time.

Liz:

We probably still have that filing cabinet.

Jason:

I remember when, you know, we got to a point, I don't know, 2000 or 2001, maybe something like that, where Rob needed administrative help, right? Because, you know, A couple of us were brewing, and Rob was doing all of the paperwork and all that. So posted a position, and interviews came in. People came in, and they'd come in, and they'd talk to Rob, and then he'd show them the office. They'd be like, no, I'm good. All set. A number of people turned down the job after I offered it. After they saw the office,

Rob:

I think. And it's funny. I'm looking up at this bottle that's sitting on the file cabinet. It's a bottle of Geary's, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Because, I mean, obviously it's a really collaborative industry. We're good friends with them. But probably right around when that picture was taken, Liquor Control came by for a surprise inspection. The bottle was empty. And the Liquor Control guy was like, you know, what is this? I'm like, it's just an empty bottle. He's like, well, you're not supposed to have any other breweries, beers in this building. And he goes, do you have any other beers? And I was like, no. And he kind of paused and he goes, do you want to think about that a little bit and answer again? And I was like, give me a couple minutes. So I went down and grabbed Ned.

Jason:

I remember this actually. I

Rob:

was like, dude, load all that beer. There was like three cases of beer that other brewers had bought. Load that in the trunk. So I came up and I was like, we're going to have this taken care of in a few minutes. He's like, okay, that's good news. That's nice of

Liz:

him. That was nice. That

Rob:

was super funny.

Liz:

You referenced this before. What were the vibes when you won that first gold medal in 1998? Yeah,

Brett:

like what was that blip of positivity like?

Rob:

Me, you, and Scotty went to New York to accept it. Didn't we share

Jason:

all three? We did, yeah, because we won it in 98, but it was in like Rio that year. the world beer cup or something it was weird because the award ceremony was actually later in New York City so we went to that award ceremony yeah all crammed in a hotel room one of us a couple of us slept on the floor yeah and went to this it was super cool it was amazing Charlie Papazian was there Michael Jackson the beer writer was there yeah Wow. Very cool.

Brett:

That's awesome. I mean, did it give you that– was that a push to keep going then to be like, yeah, we're doing something right here?

Rob:

For sure. It was nice to get some acknowledgement. Like maybe 90% of the people that were– the buyers in bars didn't have faith in it and not a whole lot of people were drinking it. But here, like Jason said, like– Charlie Papazian and Michael Jackson and all these beer aficionados that we had a lot of respect for were there awarding us the medal. And so it absolutely gives us encouragement because there wasn't a whole lot of other good news coming down the pike back then.

Brett:

Yeah. So kind of in that vein, I guess. So being an established brewery at this point, we've helped other breweries who have started up near us. But who helped– you guys out in those early days. Was there that help for you?

Rob:

Yeah. I mean, well, you know, it's funny because one of the reasons that I wanted to brew a beer that was as different as the white and brew beers in the Belgian styles is not only because it was unique and no one else was doing it, but I kind of like embrace the challenge of, um, If there's a problem we have or something we can't figure out, there's like no one to ask. Like we got to figure it out ourselves. There's something I liked about that challenge. But that being said, for sure. We got a ton of support. I mean, like I just mentioned, Geary's right around the corner when Dave Geary was getting rid of his old World Tandem Labeler. These labelers are like made in the 50s, and we were running one of them. He called me. He's like, hey, do you want parts from that Tandem Labeler? I'm like, sure. So I went over there, and he gave, I think, me, Scotty, and Jason a six-pack of Hampshire Special, and we brought a couple wrenches, and we stripped parts off that labeler.

Brett:

Wow.

Rob:

So, yeah, we absolutely got help. And then a lot of the, you know, as we got to know some of the bigger brewers in the industry, like Sierra and, you know, Ken at Sierra and Kim Jordan at New Belgium and John Mallett at Bells. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's– it's one of the reasons– we do it anyway, but it's one of the reasons we really do what we can to help our fellow brewers really anywhere in the country if they call.

Brett:

Yeah.

Rob:

with any issue, but especially locally, if a brewer has an issue with the beer they've packaged, they know that we've got a lab and we'll run analysis on it. The only charge, hey, maybe bring us a couple six-packs. But we can run an analysis in our lab, which they would otherwise have to send their beer overnight to a lab, wait a couple days for a result. We've got a state-of-the-art lab. There probably aren't many labs like this in all of New England. Right. where we can give people like that quick an answer on pretty much anything that you would need to know to diagnose a problem with beer.

Jason:

There was definitely an added challenge for one, the time, not to age ourselves, but like back in those years, like there wasn't stuff on the internet. I mean, the internet was pretty young at that point. And then also the beers we're making, making Belgian style beers, making bottle condition from basically the beginning There was a textbook we could open up and see how to do that and so on. So there was a lot of figuring stuff out our own way. But I'll also reiterate that Rob's right. The beauty of this industry was being able to pick up the phone. And I found the biggest help when we were really starting to hit a growth trajectory and figuring out– what equipment to source and how to handle stuff and so on. And those are where those phone calls to the Bells, the Sierras, the New Belgians, even the dogfishes that had gone through that growth ahead of us and had experienced what that was like were just priceless being able to bounce ideas off them and hear the failures and successes they had. That's awesome.

Liz:

Yeah. I think another– One of the things I was, and I feel like many people would say this, was drawn to here is just the tenure of the staff at Allagash. I'm sure a lot of our staff tune into our podcast. Probably. But what has the staff meant to you over the years? I think you've got some really long tenures. You've got your Greggs and your Olies and Winch and Jessica and some people who have been with you for years. Close to decades.

Rob:

For sure.

Liz:

What has the staff meant to you over these 30

Rob:

years? I mean, number one, I'm just incredibly thankful. And, you know, I always say there really isn't anyone here that just, like, shows up, punches in, does the minimum, and leaves. Like, everyone.

Liz:

No, Steve would leave his boots at the door. Just

Rob:

Steve. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, everyone just brings a ton of passion to anything they do. I don't spend a lot of time in my office. I spend a lot of time out like walking the floor and getting around and talking to people. And anytime I'm like walking up to someone and like, hey, what do you got going on? Whether it's on the packaging line or in the lab or in our tasting room or in the office where the brewers do work, over in our... in our fabrication center where our mechanical crew works over in the logistics area. Like everyone's just like genuinely excited about what they're doing and I'm excited about it too. So it's, you know, it's just, it's been always just very, very energizing for me. And, you know, I'm just, I'm thankful for all the passion everyone here has. And I mean, they're the ones that have made it happen. Like I couldn't have done it, you know? So it really is– it's that team that's made it happen and built what we've built.

Jason:

Yeah, I'll just add like what does the staff mean? And the answer is kind of like it's the most important thing honestly. Like it's what keeps me coming to work every day is the people I get to work with. And Rob mentioned the passion that they have. But there's also this kind of cool mix of like– very dedicated, very passionate, very strong-willed people who also don't take themselves all that seriously. So there's a humility that surrounds the brewery that is really just comfortable. I think, honestly, that starts with Rob, but I think it permeates its way through the whole company where sometimes people can sometimes be confused in seeing people having a good time and making jokes that they're not taking their job seriously, but it's this really wonderful combo of both. And it just keeps me psyched to keep coming to work and keeps me motivated on bad days when seeing what other people are doing. It's kind of everything, to be honest. Yeah, I think that what

Brett:

you said too, Rob, is actually a really big thing of just you couldn't do it yourself. Recognizing when someone else might be able to do something better than you could is like– such a key for me, I feel like here, because you have people where they're, they're energized because they are the ones in charge of that thing. You know, it's not like they're being micromanaged. It's like they're doing it. And that, that gives you such ownership over what you're doing and like leads to such better, I don't know, better outcomes that I've seen. So it's just, yeah, that's a cool part that I always

Rob:

appreciate. Technically I was air quote brewmaster for the first 10 or 12 years. But I mean, I got to the point probably around like 2007 or something like that, where I A, I just had a lot on my plate, and B, I was starting to realize that Jason had a lot more competence than I do in potential just running that side of the business. I handed it off. To Jason, and I'm glad I did because he is a lot more confident than I am with that facet of the business. And the brewing quality and consistency did nothing but improve after I handed the reins over to him. Totally.

Liz:

Describe your ideal time to enjoy an Allagash White.

Rob:

I mean, like honestly, unless for some reason I can't get my hands on it, I drink an Allagash White every day. And every time I drink it, it's a slightly different experience because I'm in a different setting. You know, sometimes I'm maybe, you know, outside, like in that picture, in a canoe with a friend. Or sometimes I'm, you know, sometimes I'm out to dinner with some friends. Right. And I'm eating one entree, you know, during one experience drinking a white and a different entree in a different restaurant drinking a white.

Brett:

Yeah.

Rob:

You know, every time it's a completely different experience. And, you know, one of the things I love about this beer, and it's something we strive for with all of our beers, and that's complexity and balance. So you don't have one flavor that overwhelms this beer. So every time what we're looking for and what I really do feel like we accomplish it, every time we drink this, you're picking up something different, you know, depending on the setting, depending on what you're eating it, eating with it, enjoying with it, a different flavor or aroma combination expresses itself. So, I mean, I look forward to drinking it tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday. Who knows what the future will bring? Who knows? But I love it. Like, honestly, I love it. probably more like with each passing year than I loved it back in 1995. It's still my favorite thing to drink.

Brett:

Yeah.

Jason:

Yeah, I mean, I also drink a fair bit

Rob:

of

Jason:

Allagash White and drink it very, very regularly. And I will admit that I'm guilty of, on occasion, you know, from time to time, just like taking it for granted. It's just like, oh, I'm drinking it. Totally. Just, that's white. I've had white all the time. But there are still, after all these years, many moments, whether it's, you know, drinking a warm-up beer before a sensory panel or having a beer after work or... But maybe I've been gone for a while and I come back and have one and I haven't had one where it's like, it's almost like I'm having it for the first time again. And I'm like, holy, this beer is so good. And like for me to be able to still say that regularly after all these years is just pretty awesome. So that's not a specific time per se, but it's like that experience that continues to come again and again where I just, you know, take a sip and I'm like, damn.

Liz:

there's sort of no wrong answers with Allagash White. And I think when you ask fans of the beer, like what their favorite scenario to drink Allagash White is, they're all so different and none of them are wrong. I love to have it in the summer. I love to have it in the winter. I love to have it with seafood. I love to have it with this. And so it's just accessible. It doesn't like, Not strong enough or as powerful as Allagash White is, but it is such a great word to describe it because you can have it in so many different occasions and just like really be in that moment.

Rob:

And it is, it is really different and unique and... I mean, Jason kind of mentioned this too, like I don't really notice it. And like in some ways it just like tastes like beer to me. Like, do you know what I mean? But then there'll be times where, you know, maybe we're in Germany buying some equipment and I'm over there and I love those beers, like drinking those, drinking lagers over in Germany. And then I come back and I grab a white and I'm like, whoa, like that is different. You just realize it. Or, you know, if we're in, a different market with some maybe brewers that we work with and we're, you know, doing a collaboration and I'm drinking and enjoying their beer and then I'll grab an Allagash White. I'm like, whoa, it just... It's a big... contrast you know when I'm trying something else and then go

Brett:

back to the white that was actually kind of my answer is is that I you know having this first beer wonderful there's like kind of no wrong time but like after having a couple of other beers and then having Allagash white I feel like that's always the moment when I'm like what like it just where it hits you you're like oh that's so good and I don't know there's something really nice about that at that contrast of just be like wow this is just such a wonderful package of a lot of different things last last question where we're going And this can be specific to Allagash or specific to beer in general. But we're just wondering, what do you see as the future of beer given everything you've seen and obviously everything that's happening currently? Beer is not even close to what it was back in 1995. It's such a different place. But where do you think it's going? What would you say?

Rob:

I don't have that crystal ball. I think one of the reasons that I– was so fascinated by the Belgian brewing tradition and culture is there's almost an unlimited palette of raw materials to choose from as a brewer. Spices, yeast strains, bacteria for fermentation, oak aging. And, you know, we've got this really cool program here, a pilot program where anyone at the brewery, if they have an idea for a beer, they can submit it, brew it on this pilot system. We're literally running that a hundred times a year. We've been doing that for five or six years. So we have hundreds of recipes and we're not running out of ideas.

Liz:

I submitted one today. I'm sure it's going to get. I just

Brett:

got one accepted.

Liz:

All right,

Brett:

Brett. I'm just

Liz:

excited.

Brett:

I'm just excited. Is it your first one?

Liz:

Second one. Oh, did your first one get accepted? I think I was too ahead of my time.

Jason:

I'm excited. That's exciting, Liz. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. There's just so much more. many options that beer can become and flavors that can be created and some wacky, some not. And I think there's no doubt that the consumers are going to continue to demand it. I mean, it's who would have ever predicted where we stand to now for the type of alcoholic beverages that are available for people and beverages in general. But all that said, I don't– Don't ever see a time where there's not a place for well-balanced beers that are done with nuanced flavor and balance. I think that's always going to be the case. And luckily for us, that's Allagash White. And there's lots of other beers out there that are in that category. And next year, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, there are going to be plenty of consumers who are looking for that balance. You know, we often talk about, like, beers like Allagash White is, like, if you want to fuss over it as a beer geek and you want to talk about it and all that, you're welcome to. Yeah. But you also can just drink it and appreciate the nuance and the drinkability of it. And I think, you know, years from now, we're still going to be wanting to drink beers like this. You're

Brett:

here. Yeah. I agree. Perfect place to set us down.

Liz:

Yeah. So we are celebrating our 30th anniversary. Yeah. And we are going to have a fun, I'll call it a beer release, but it's not really a beer release. We have... or retro can design for Allagash White. And that's going to be March 22nd. And we hope you'll join us here at the brewery.

Brett:

Only at the brewery. That is where you will be able to buy it. So it's going to be brewery specific. We've got one here in front of us. We'll put it in the blog that this podcast is attached to so you can see the design. But it's a super cool one. It's

Liz:

another story of someone knocking on... the door. Tell the story.

Brett:

There you go, Rob. The story. So this is a logo prior to the actual, the first Allagash White logo that is based

Rob:

on. Can I see that? Yeah, sure. Yeah. So it's basically, it's not identical to it, but it's really, really, really close. Yeah. Um, Yeah, when I started, we didn't even have a logo. This just shows you how much business savvy I have, which is none, apparently. Because when I started, I was just like, who needs a logo? I'll just sell the beer. And honestly, it was just going to be draft only anyway, so I didn't have to worry about a logo for cans and bottles. I did need one for the tap handle, but wasn't thinking about it at the time. And this is probably, I would say, March of 1995. So four or so months before I started shipping beer and a guy came in the door. One of the few times someone used to come in the door and I was like, can I help you? He's like, oh, you know, I heard you were opening up a brewery. You know, I'm selling T-shirts. I'm like, dude, I can't afford like T-shirts. Like I had no budget for anything promotional like that. And I said, not only that, I don't have anything to put on the t-shirt because I don't have a logo. And he said, well, what if I like do a logo for you for free? And, you know, in trade, you can buy 144 of my t-shirts. And I was like, how much are the shirts? $4.50 each. I was like, you got a deal, dude. So, you know, I mean, we sat down right there and I was like, this is kind of how I'd, you know, want to set it up. And, you know, I just had like a vague idea of what I wanted. And he came back like a week later with a full color drawing of this logo. And I was like, all right, here's a check for the t-shirts. So I had a logo just like that. It actually is pretty cool. It's super cool. It looks like an Allman Brothers album

Brett:

cover. A little Allman Brothers-y for sure. But every time we've showed it to staff, we've kind of brought it up here and there, and every time everyone's like, oh, that's so sick. We've got to do a throwback shirt or a throwback. So we're really excited to be actually producing this throwback can. It'll be really fun. I'm pumped. I'm pumped to have a beer out of these

Rob:

cans.

Liz:

So join us at the brewery March 22nd, Saturday. I'll be there. Rob's going to be there. A little toast. I heard maybe even signing a couple cans.

Rob:

I'm happy to sign cans.

Liz:

And there might actually be coffee and donuts. Coffee and donuts. That's a big thing for folks.

Brett:

That's a throwback to what we used to do for beer releases. We had free coffee and donuts for special beer releases.

Rob:

Awesome. Coffee, donuts, and beer.

Liz:

Perfect.

Brett:

Perfect.

Liz:

Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thanks, Rob and Jason. You crushed it. We might invite you back.

Brett:

Well, Uh-oh.

Liz:

Thank

Brett:

you. Don't worry. I've been stressed about this all week. In another four years. This has been an Allagash Brewing production. If you have something you'd like us to talk about or a question for our team, just send us an email at podcast at allagash.com. And as always, thanks for listening.