Season 2: #9 Jen and John Kimmich: Inside the Alchemist Brewery Story

This week we were honored to welcome craft beer legends Jen and John Kimmich, co-owners of The Alchemist Brewery into the Octagon studio. The Alchemist makes Heady Topper, one of the top rated beers in the world and has been instrumental in the evolution of craft beer over the last 20 years. Jen and John not only make some of the best beer in the world but also are incredibly generous in the broader Stowe community and go to great lengths to support their employees, the environment, social causes and charities. The Alchemist Brewery has become a hub in the Stowe Community where Stowe residents and guests come to leave the worlds trouble behind and enjoy some of the world's best beer.

We also took this opportunity to welcome our first ever guest host- Pete Graves into the studio! Pete is a Focal Banger enthusiast and has been an integral part of the Stowe community coaching youth sports and launching Ride with his wife Joanna. We couldn't think of a better person to co-host this special episode prior to him moving to North Carolina to begin the next chapter in his illustrious golf career.

Transcript

0:00

This episode of the Octagon Podcast is brought to you in part by Archery Close and Union Bank. Hey, it's Tace and Chris from Archery Close your go-to Men's and Women's Boutique located here in Stowe. We wanna invite all of you Octagon listeners to our holiday market. The weekend of December 6th and seventh, we'll have a custom marine layer sweatsuit station. What does that mean? Well, you pick out a new cozy sweatsuit, select from a fun collection of iron on patches, and then have a mimosa and brunchy snack. So we customize your soup. Also joining us for the holiday market are two amazing Makers. Seven and Sun Jewelry and Warren, a brand new men's line based in Vermont. So stop on by archery close and celebrate the season with us on December 6th and seventh at 1650 Mountain Road. Since 1891, union Bank has made banking a little bit easier and more convenient for you by investing in the success of its local community. Your community headquartered in Mooresville Union Bank has 18 branches and three loan centers throughout Northern Vermont and New Hampshire. Union Bank is a proud supporter of the Octagon Podcast, as well as many fantastic community oriented endeavors such as the STO Trails Partnership, the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum, and the STO Land Trust to name a few of the over 200 nonprofits they work with. To learn more, go to ub local.com. Welcome listeners to the Octagon Podcast, where we explore the stories, people, and places that make do Vermont so legendary. I'm your host Mike Carey, and I am usually joined by my co-host Ted Thorndyke. But today we have a very special guest, co-host, Pete Graves. Pete, welcome. Thank you. Look forward to it. we'll dive into that later, but, for now, we are super excited to introduce our guest today, Jen and John Chemic, co-owners of the Alchemist. The Alchemist makes Heady Topper one of the top rated beers in the world and has been instrumental in the evolution of craft beer over the last 20 years. Jen and John not only make some of the best beer in the world, but also are incredibly generous in the broader STO community and go to great lengths to support the environment, social causes and charities. Welcome Jen, John, and Pete. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, thanks Pete. Great to see you guys. So we are here enjoying a focal hanger, which is part of the reason why I invited Pete to join here. Pete is moving from STO tomorrow to Wilmington, North Carolina. And Pete, what's your favorite beer in the entire world? I'd say focal back. I think people that know me understand what I'm talking about. Love that. Exactly. but yeah, let's dive in. let's just start at the beginning. take us through the history of the Alchemist. How you got into brewing the early days of the Waterbury Pub. Take us through some of the history. Yeah. John and I met in 1996 at the Vermont Pub and Brewery. Yeah. I had weed tables there and bartended in college. And then after graduating I was backpacking around, various places and I'd go back to save money and this one time I went back to save money. John had been hired on as a new brewer and we crossed paths in the coffee station and that was it. I think I would say love at for sight. Six months. Yeah, probably three months later. we had our first date and to be frank, he never left and that was great. It was amazing. Yeah. and then we started dreaming and scheming our own brew pub. we were young, we were in our early twenties. we got married when we were 25 and for the first eight years of our marriage, John worked on recipes. I worked on business plan with this idea that we would just have a community brew pub. We wanted to do what we loved and we wanted a community gathering space. And that was really the ultimate goal. and we also spent the first, couple years of our marriage in Jackson, Wyoming. So while we were skiing, we were working two, three jobs at a time. And that's what we did for eight years. And then we opened our brew up. It's amazing.'cause I know a lot of people who say, I'm gonna brew some beer outta my basement or my garage but they never turn it into a business like you guys. So amazing what you've done. And how does that happen? How does it become the successful business? it's, it is a long tail, that's for sure. and Jen quickly went across a lot of stuff there. it's a, it's been decades in the making. since I was in college and discovered brewing. and, I was a business major and just trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I knew I wanted to be my own boss someday. And I had just discovered brewing. and at that time it was, craft beer was just getting going. This was in, 91, 92. and What drew me to Vermont in the first place, was beer. a brother-in-law had introduced me to brewing and home brewing, and one night after dinner he pulled a bottle of Catamount Porter out of his fridge. And there was just something about it that immediately I remember everything about that moment. And something about holding that bottle in my hand and knowing it was from Vermont. And at the time I was working at Home Brew Shop and had started reading books on books, like Everything on the Planet. And one of them that, really stuck with me was written by, our late friend and mentor Greg Nunan and, from the Vermont Pub and Brewery. So that is what drew me to Vermont, was I wanted to work for him. And so I came up here, got a job, and when Jen and I met, Thankfully she was there at the Vermont Pub and Brewery, and that's where our paths crossed. and to say it was love at first sight is an understatement. it was bonkers. And everything, in our years together has fit that same vein. So what has led us through from different things and living in different places, and as Jen mentioned, designing our business plan and conceiving of what it was gonna be for that alone to get us to 2003, where somehow we were able to start that pub. And then everything that has then continued since then. it blows our minds still when we talk about it and think about it. And it's a wild ride. there's so much that goes into it, but, here we are. Yeah, there was nothing easy about it. When we opened in 2003, we had$150,000. That we had, spent all the money, we had a bunch of salvaged equipment, crappy used restaurant equipment. We had about 200 bucks left in the bank, 15 new employees, no health insurance. And the day after we opened, we found out we were pregnant. you found out you, and it was scary to say the least, but you know what? It really did work out. 10 months later we had the baby in the Bjorn and we were hosting and splitting shifts and Yeah. One thing after another. An impossible story to put in the F 45 minutes. Yeah. No, To get to that spot. Did you have all of the beer? Like, were you these are the beers we're gonna come out with. what was the business plan to be different or, that was all super intentional Yeah. Of the way we did things. so when we opened that first night at the pub, I think we had, I think I had seven beers on tap. I probably wouldn't be able to name all seven, but, five of them were, what we were going to brew as our core beers that were gonna be on tap seven days a week. And then as we would grow, we would add more selections. But that opening night, we had seven beers on tap, and it was very intentional to cover a range of flavors and styles. at the same time, it was a testing ground where I designed the beers to be okay, this is not safe, but these are just very approachable versions of these beers. And IPA, of course, was the big, Sh the big crapshoot was, how are people gonna respond to what I wanted to make? IPA and what we like to drink is what I was making. and so holy cow, IPA was that first IPA that we had on tap there and when people drank it to them, it was an extremely hoppy beer. but there was excellent response to it. It was quickly, probably our number two beer behind Donovan's Red, which forever was the Wow. The number one beer old school. yeah. And super approachable, distinctly craft, but Not too much for people. So it was enough that people were going out and having something delicious, and lower alcohol, all those things. the response that we got to the holy cow immediately was like, alright, I can do whatever the hell I want down there. Yeah, let's go. it was within probably two months that I brewed that first batch of Heady Topper at the pub. And that's a whole nother tale. And it was such a exciting time to be in craft beer because this was, after the boom of the nineties and then the collapse, but before the next boom. So you could just focus on your local community and do what you wanted. But we were able to have Porter on tap all the time. We had a pilsner on tap all the time, or a light ale. Anyway, golden. The Donovan's red. So just these kind of classic, really good, really well made beers, just malt water hops. And then we started doing the bigger IPAs. And that's always what we've done is just good clean beer. And now it's just so confusing. you have people putting Twinkies and beer and oatmeal and this and that, but that was just a great time for craft beer because everyone was just making good, honest beer. Trying to, anyway, I think. Yeah. Was And crushing the, was trying to, I was done on Cape Cod. There was peanut butter crunched beer. Yeah. come on. That's just empty calories. Nobody wants that. That's gross. Was pretty good. But like double IPAs at that time. I'm trying to even remember. I just remember Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I'm trying to think of IPAs at that time. I can't even really remember some. in a packaged form there weren't really. Yeah. even on draft, especially. Around here. you weren't getting anything like that. Yeah. At best you would find Sierra Nevada on tap. Yeah. Dogfish Head, 90 Fish Head. Yeah. Yeah. That was, and the McMenamins from Brattleboro, sorry. McNeil's. McNeil's, Ray McNeil. Yeah. And yep. McNeil's down in Brattleboro. Yep. Ray was making some really great IPAs and other different stuff. But, when we started packaging beer that Headie Topper, when it first went into cans, there, there really was nothing that you would go to the store and find craft double IPAs in a 16 ounce four pack like that. It just didn't exist. One of the early beers that kind of was on our radar that was, was Sierra Nevada, which was their torpedo IPA that they were doing. I remember that in the, The, like 2009, 10, around there. and it's just a funny story about that is when we first started distributing and we're going out to different accounts and trying to, gauge their interest in selling our beer. And, it was, up at Winooski Beverage and the manager told us that their number one selling IPA was, Sierra Nevada torpedo, and I think it sold six cases a week. And he said, I can't imagine you're gonna sell that much, that's our top selling IPA in a can. We'll take a couple of cases. We said, okay. So I think within a week or two of them getting our beer, they were taking full pallets of 80 cases and selling out in a day, two days. Yeah. so that was the, that was early on with that. But that teaching people what our beer was years and years of, Yeah. Education. Yeah. hazy, IPA, please. When I first started making that heady topper and beer advocate was the thing that was all the rage. And people would review your beer. This was a new thing in the world of beer. And they had five categories and everything was one out of five. And our ratings would be fives on everything except appearance. People would give us like one out of five and would actually give us shit because it was hazy and it was whatever, taste it, Taste it. So years and years, it took for us to get people to accept the idea of a hazy IPA and then it quickly tipped Yep. The other direction and then. Yeah. our beer wasn't hazy enough. All of a sudden people would tell us that our beer's not hazy enough. And then you start buying beer that looks like Mud Yeah. And, it's just disgusting. yeah. it's, we've seen, it's really a little bit of everything's, but I think the big point is it wasn't intentional. it wasn't intentionally hazy. It's just unfiltered beer, not filtering out the flavor has flavor, like natural wine, Yeah. And then you have people just trying to make it hazy and chunky and all this stuff. Yeah. And, it did, it got outta control. Yeah. But we weren't following a trend. We were just trying to put the best beer we could in a package. it's, and it was a risk. That's how we liked our IPA. Yeah. And when I brewed it, and that's what we liked to drink, and it was hazy by the nature of the process, Yeah. What the hell? and when I sit there and drink it, it's amazing. And then I drink somebody else's and it's not amazing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I agree. then also when we were deciding what to put in the can back in 2011, when we were opening, these double IPAs, big IPAs, were selling mostly in 22 ounce bottles for$10 a piece.'cause the packaging is so expensive and this and that. And we said, boy, if we can put it in 16 ounce cans, that's a home run and minimize the cost of the packaging and just focus on the beer. And we didn't want to use glass. Yeah. environmentally we didn't want broken glass out in our rivers, which I had found. there's tails of that. And, the beer itself being unpasteurized and unfiltered and being loaded with hops. Literally, you put that beer in direct sunlight for 10 seconds and it will begin to skunk. And that is a process of ultraviolet light reacting with the hop resins. And that's what skunky beer is. So it had to be protected from sunlight. So the can was just the perfect thing. the coalescing of small canning technology hitting at the same time that we were doing what we were doing. It all just meshed very well. Amazingly. so you guys, you just mentioned rivers. I wanna go back a little bit to the pub and, you guys were crushing it. I remember going to that restaurant really hard to get into by the way. It was amazing. And then all of a sudden. Hurricane ire Irene hits. can you tell us what happened at that moment? what didn't happen at that moment? We got smashed in the stomach, repeatedly for months. that was, it was brutal. And, since then Waterbury Hass been hit by multiple floods, so we can't really be justified in complaining about it because everybody has much fresher wounds. But yeah, that was a disaster. It was, I think the big part of the story is that in January of that year, 2011, we started build out on our first leased brewery space, production brewery in Waterbury. Yep. About a mile up the road. we hoped to open in June. We didn't open in June that summer. We were so busy at the pub, we were working so hard. All of our money, all of our profits were going into getting that cannery open. And then when we finally got the cannery open and we were broke again, but we got through that next day, we were flooded. It was just, it was crazy. The timing. Yeah. but it was also, we were so lucky to have the cannery, we really were, yeah. I moved here, so Lisa and I moved here a week before Hurricane Irene. Full-time. We had been coming here, that's when we moved here full time. And I think I saw, I read an article somewhere, the Alchemist flooded. Cannery's Open. I'm like, oh, I gotta go support them. Let me go to the cannery. And I showed up, I had a taster. I bought a case, and I had never had it. And I came home what is that? And then the next time I went back, there was a little bit of a line. And then the next time we went back there was a longer line. I don't know if people wanted to support you at the same time, it was coming out like this amazing convergence of events maybe that well and a catastrophe in a true catastrophe at the same time. And we were bitter because there were people at Massachusetts plates and they were getting cases and we're like behind. Yeah. I, no offense. that's No, I heard from On Plate at that time, just so I didn't, wasn't one of those. I would love to say they were fun times, but they weren't. Yeah, I would say were, they were probably the hardest, really hardest. Days for us. Yeah. Because we couldn't make anyone happy. Yeah. People were telling us that we were, they were online saying they're rigging the market. They're purposefully not making enough beer. we're broke, we're trying to make it up. Beer. It was just brutal. people had just started using Facebook a lot and the beer advocate and all these websites and it was brutal. Yeah. So many people wanted to just come and buy it and resell it, Oh yeah. and then locals were upset,'cause they couldn't get in. Yeah. So it wasn't great, don't you think? Yeah, sure. it was a rough ride. it was, it is what it was. But when you're in it, you can't appreciate it one bit because as Jen said, we were constantly getting beat up over different things. And, that day after the flood, when we did our first packaging run, geez, what an incredible day with, Jen was up at the cannery running the retail as the packaging was happening. Of our first canning run, that was Tuesday after the Sunday night flood. She came down to the pub, I came up out of the basement. I had been waist deep in, all the fouls of that flood. and I come up in the alley and she had the first can off the canning line. And so we stood there and cracked it and I chugged half, she chugged half and she drove back to the cannery and kept on doing what she was doing. And I went right back in the basement. So that was our hooray moment. And it was like about 30 seconds and it was The air just came out of the balloon. but looking back, it was such an amazing moment because when I did finally leave there and I drove over, I took a break and went over to the cannery and and people were there in line buying it. and they looked like I did covered in shit and mocking fuel. And it was just a really powerful moment. And to know that at the end of the, this shit day, they're going home and just oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Having one of those beers and try to forget that for a little bit, And that's what it's all about, that's the beauty of anything like that, that you share with friends and family and good times and bad and all of that stuff, yeah. Yeah. Must feel really good to be a part of that whole thing. It's just, and you probably had no idea what was about to happen from there, right? Sure. was beer,'cause I'm trying to remember. Beer was somewhat getting popular, but I feel like it blew up. it just all of a sudden, like Everybody wanted beer. Mm-hmm. Beer. I really think it was like 2009, 2010 when people started carrying. iPhones. Yep. And they had their apps and they had the no, the beer rating and beer advocate, and then later rate beer, Facebook we're releasing this beer, all the hype. It was fun. It was a thing, everyone's sick of that now. So it's not so much a thing, but it was a thing. But it also, at the time that we opened, there were 1400 breweries in the country. And today, last year there was almost 10,000. So of anything that, sparks, a tidal wave of imitators come out and people get into the business for different reasons, and most of them were for the wrong reasons. And now the world is rife with garbage. that eventually will shake out and the wall disappear, and the ones that are worth something will still be around. So it's that pendulum swing of. it's like the flaming Mo on the Simpsons. All of a sudden it's on every corner and then it's, it's but I feel like I'm in software and it's first come the innovators. Then come the imitators. Yeah. Then come the imposters. Yeah. Yeah. that's literally, it's the same kind of thing, right? Oh, it's been five to 10 years of imposters. Yeah. Yep. So eventually those will all go away. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. we love what we do. We've built the life for ourselves that we want, and since we've opened, we've seen so many breweries, even here in Vermont, open up. Yeah. They make 10 times as much beer as us, five times as much. Everyone thinks we make a lot of beer, but we're small and that's all we want to do, is just make as much beer as we do and be here forever. Really. That's the goal. And it's very intentional. Jen and I didn't get into it to build something that we're then gonna sell. we got into it because we both love to work. And that's just the reality. neither one of us are built for, retirement in any sense of the word. So we have cons. Jen said, we've built this business to, to conform to our lifestyle, which is we take great satisfaction in a hard day's work, and we still work seven days a week. but we have created it in a way that we get our downtime and we get our releases and we get our vacations here and there, and, it just charges us back up. We're ready to come back because we are just in love with what we do. That's awesome. And the sway that it gives us, the power that it gives us to see our version of things Coalesce and to be able to help our employees, and we create this atmosphere of 50 employees and their families, and we take great pride in providing a quality way of life for a lot of people here in Vermont, which is a hard thing to realize now. is Charlie, I know you have Charlie. Is this something he wants to be involved with or is have you been approached to turn it over to someone else? We hope not. I don't know if I approached to turn it over. We've been obviously approached ask. Oh yeah. No, we made the decision long ago. Yeah. we had to, many times we'd never have even gotten far enough to sign a non-disclosure agreement. But yeah, all the time. All the time. Private equity companies, large Japanese equity brewing companies, all of it. But, again, where would we be? What would our life look like? And we have gone through the process of really envisioning that together. Okay. We sell our business tomorrow. We got a pile of money, what do we do? Yeah. And that's not good. And then all of a sudden, your beer's not as good anymore because this our, look at our life, look at us. We're doing what we love in a beautiful place. Yeah. People respect us. We respect them, it's community. And as far as Charlie's concerned, we've never put that kind of pressure on him. yep. Charlie is very adept at finding his way in life, and he's doing an amazing job of it. And he is his own person. with that said, it was not that long ago for the first time ever that he even brought the idea up, so Of course, how would the thoughts not be in his mind? But we've always told him time. And again, we do not expect you to be a part of the family business. Yeah. Because we're not. that's our dream. we would never want to stand in the way of his dreams and what he wants to do. So we're here. To facilitate him in finding his way. And if someday that way finds its path back to us, then, sure there's an open door for that, but there's no pressure. But I think, everybody sitting at this table, with their life experience also knows how much you change in your twenties and as you grow up. And yeah. If you're motivated to go out and kick some ass in the world, fantastic. whatever form that takes. So I also know that you tend to start to develop, a larger picture and long term things, and you start to prioritize different things and, so who knows? Who knows? But it's not a lot of work for Treehouse. I, I, nor would he want it. I do know though that we both. Picture the Alchemist being around long after we're alive. Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of really great people that work for us and with us, and it's not just Charlie. And that is something that is really important to us, especially our foundation. Yeah. So that's something we think about all the time's. this episode is sponsored by Edelweiss Mountain Deli located on the mountain Road. I know for me it is the perfect stopping point after day on the hill to grab my favorite Waitsfield sandwich and a cup of coffee, and for me grabbing my favorite Sweet Sensation bar. Whether you're looking for fresh Vermont pastries, farm to table prepared meals or local Vermont products to add your barbecue, make sure Edelweiss Mountain Deli is your next stop. When it comes to luxury real estate in Stowe Trust, Meg Kaufman of Land Vests, Christie's International Real Estate. Meg Kaufman knows the market inside and out. She's been a part of the Stowe community for over 20 years. Whether you're buying or selling, Meg Kaufman offers a concierge level of service. Taylor, just for you. Backed by the power of land vests and Christie's International. She brings proven success and local insight to every transaction, luxury real estate, local expertise. Meg Kaufman and Land Vests are the team you want on your side. when I go to The Alchemist, it's just an amazing scene there. and you go to some places, the employees look miserable, but every time I go to The Alchemist, I'm the employees look absolutely happy. They're the best. they're nice to the customer. It's just h how do you guys hire good people and keep'em on and, we a what's the process there? We have a help yourself jar of cannabis edibles on the counter for employees that you're required to have every day. So are you hiring? Jen, I think there's so many great people that live in this area. Yeah. And there isn't access to really good jobs, right? Yep. We have so many employers in the area that hire seasonally and then they just squeeze it at you, right? Yep. You don't work all November and then your scheduled Christmas week, right? And, that's not fair. So we don't squeeze it outta people. Everyone, pretty much everyone gets a salary. Everyone works year round benefits. it's expensive, it's hard. but we're committed to it. and it's that's it. we invest in them, they invest in us. There's mutual respect, but at the end of the day. You can't just tell your employee you care about them. You need to figure out a way to help them get health insurance, give them paid time off and give them stability in their life, or you're not gonna get great employees. So that's it. Yeah, it's impressive. And we see it, we see it all over with our biggest employers in town. It's just squeeze it. You squeeze it, right? Yeah, we do. And we see very successful employers that still squeeze their employees. And that just, that's just not, that just doesn't sit with us. that's not what we consider to be, responsible. Good, responsible, moral outstanding, as a human. because we've done it, we've worked you've done that, right? We've been, yeah. We've had horrible shorter hours all November. And then you have to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, new Year's Eve, new Year's Day. Yeah. Yeah. We've had horrible bosses and we've had amazing bosses. And over the many years of working countless jobs, we've. Filed that away any good human should do, and especially somebody that's gonna, have employees work with them. those are lessons that you better be paying attention to and you better not forget how shitty a shitty boss can be. And that's just the worst thing ever to go to a job that you are on the way to work and you're just dreading it. Yeah. oh my God, I got nine hours to just put my head down and get through this. And that's a miserable, horrible existence. and we just can't personally be responsible for ha creating a job that makes somebody feel like that. Yeah. Now it chose. Yeah. you walk in those doors and it's, for me, it's like you leave the world's troubles behind when you close the door and you go in and you see the employees and you have a beer and it's just awesome. It's like Disney World, huh? That's what we want. Yeah. It's the weed, Mike. I'm telling you. It's the weed. That's what we want. We don't wanna be like a. But it's 2000 era brewery with flights of beer. we wanna be just a cool place where everyone wants to come. We don't care if you're drinking beer or even having wine. Just come in, play a game. Some music you still, occasionally you get somebody online that's clearly have one beer on draft, what the hell? It's it's a really good beer though. Know it's come on's no one. I know. It's so one star and it's never anyone under 50, Yeah. And it's just, again, it's just a testament to Jen and I just do it the way we want to do it. Yep. Yeah. And we're along for the ride. Yeah. That's how I feel. I along for the ride. The vast majority of our customers get that. Yeah. And they love it. Yeah. And then you have the couple that just, it's like. You can't have everything. Sorry. Yeah. I know a lot of people are used to just that instant gratification. I want it, I get it. it's tough shit. We won't give it to you just because you want it. Yeah. Don't sample 12 beers for$5. Make decision. There's a reason people don't do that anymore. It doesn't make financial sense. 12 bad years too. Like I've gone places, I'm like, all your beer is bad. Why not make two good ones? All our beer is good. That's right. But a lot of paces still do that stuff because they capitulate to what they think they have to do. And I think it was, it was over COVID OI when we had a major redesign of our space. That was when Jen and I just said, what can we do to make this better for us? Like enough for. Almost 20 years, we had just been giving and just you're getting leached of energy, like you can't sustain it. And we checked it all and we created, Jen created that cafe space, which perfectly captured everything that we'd loved about that pub, but none of what was just really got old after a few years. the being open late, having to deal with people drinking late, the stored of Damocles hanging over our head of people leaving our place with beer in their belly at midnight. And what happens when they walk out that door because we're responsible. Yeah. And, running a restaurant, which hats off to anybody that still runs amazing restaurants and there are so many here in sto. That boy thank all of them because yes, what a thankless grind. and people do it because of the, some of the reasons that we do what we do. They love doing that for people. They love creating that and it's brutal. all the more reason for everybody listening when you're out at your local STO restaurants. Just keep that in mind. just think of how difficult that is and when it is dead, go out and don't forget that your servers are still living on gratuities and be generous.'cause everybody can be more generous than they think they can be. And that's the reality of it. Yep. A hundred percent. Good point. Can we talk about, the names of your beers? I have a soft spot for focal, but, and you guys have tons of other beers, but. what is the process of naming beers and who, I'm sure there's no one person that says, this would be Heady Topper, and how does that work? there's two people, you guys name every beer. Oh, sure. Yeah. Lots of brainstorming really. from the beginning, our name, the Alchemist, it was lots of car rides throwing different names around. Going back to it, I'd like to be a fly on the wall on those car rides. The Heady Topper and Focal Banger have special stories. I don't know if John wants to share. a lot of, most of our beers, there's a story behind each beer name. because really they're, they come out of me and Jen just sitting around, coming up with funny ideas and talking shit. Hetty is one of the originals and so this was before we were even, a pub. I can remember one specific afternoon. Beautiful summer, evening, and we're sitting out on the front porch of the condo that we're living in and just like brainstorming names. And, El Hefe came out of there. holy cow. IPA, I think came out of that brainstorm session. somewhere we might even have the notebook where we wrote names down in the book. and so Heady Topper was conceived of that day and, yeah, I started talking about it a couple years ago.'cause now Charlie's 21 and Game, gloves are off. We'd be, we could be real here. cannabis has had a very central place in my life since I was a young man. and I, Jen can speak to her own experience, but, In a moment of inspiration out there on the front porch, the name Headie Topper came up and it is the conglomeration of two different terms for high grade cannabis. which is, heady, heady is a slang for great buds. amazing. And, things can be heady. People use the term as that's heady and stuff like that. that was always a term that floated around on Grateful Dead Tour and and early Days of Fish. that term was just in the air, And then the topper is the Top Cola off of a beautiful cannabis plant. So Heady Topper, which I mean, from day one, the beer was conceived to smell like and taste like high grade weed. My brother is still convinced you sprinkle some weed in that beer. Is that possible? No, that's impossible. but to say that it's not intentional would be a lie. every year that we select the hops for the year, that is, that's the profile I'm going for. Yeah, it's intentional. So does the beer come first and then the name and then, that name is first the name. So you're I'm gonna brew a Oh, we had that. That was just a great name. Yeah. But it was clearly gonna be a double IP You filled it in. You had the name, you were probably brainstorming from double IPA, right? I don't know. Brainstorm to say, know it's hard to say. So you don't have to taste the beer and be oh, this is the name of this beer. No. Just different phrases that sound, yeah. Fun things. Yeah. Catchy. Not too gimmicky. Yeah, not cheesy. You don't wanna be corporate cheesy. And our big thing is always not being, we don't ever want to feel corporate. Yeah. Or cheesy. Cute animals on the can. This is my thing that I know that beer's not gonna be good with a cute turtle on the can. But we've been in business 20 over 22 years now. We have never ever used a PR company. A marketing company. Yeah. A design company. we're totally imperfect DIY, but that's how we like it. Use love cannabis instead of those PR companies. A hundred percent. yeah, and we're also cheap. We'd rather donate the money than hire, hire someone to help us. And it's more of wanting to come from a genuine place of creativity and authentic. Authentic, and we want to give money to artists, local artists and we always knew that we wanted our cans to be unique. and when we designed these cans. That kind of thing didn't exist. It was a very straightforward Sierra Nevada kind of world where you saw very old school labels. And so when people first saw cans really struck a chord. And of course since then, as we spoke of earlier with the imitation, everybody wants to do that. And so then it all became about the can and less about what was in the can. so with that said, we've always been very cognizant of branding, where a lot of these young craft breweries who are like, whatever, that doesn't matter. We put out a different label on every beer B, b. I tell you now, they're worried about it because there's no brand identity. And so as far as we don't want to be corporate, but that doesn't mean that we didn't learn things in college. I went to business school. You learn the importance of branding and. Customer loyalty and all of that stuff. So this was all very intentional when we finally decided to put a second beer into a package in a permanent large scale kind of thing, with focal banger. Again, that was very intentional that the art was the inverse image. The black silver. The silver black. So that when you saw them on a shelf together, it was distinctly, those are alchemist beers and they still stand out to this day with a sea of rainbows on the shelf. You still see our beers and they stick out and, aside from that corporate field, the harbingers of Doom, rebranding. Oh, Oh man. These breweries that rebrand. Yeah. I must say when I see the silver and black and silver just warms the heart. Yeah. and that when people rebrand, in my opinion, in my experience, That is not good. Yep. That is when a brewery is being, pressured to increase visibility, all those corporate lingo bullshit. And the first thing they'll do is hire a consultant and they'll be like, you need a fresh look to your branding. And then all that tradition homegrown feel is poof. Yeah. And it's gone. And now you're just a corporate glob like everybody else. Yep. Great points. we didn't cover focal banger, how that got its name. So go ahead ask that, Pete.'cause that's your beer. Okay. Are you avoiding the focal banger? question here. let's talk about focal. All you gotta do is ask the question. Yeah, I don't avoid questions. We have a couple in front of us here. So let's talk about how you named Focal. Yes, we're all sitting here drinking Focal bangers right now. So Good. Which is just by chance, Jen's favorite beer also. Woo. Love you Jen. focal Banger. I think the first time we made Focal Banger was back in 2007, maybe, something like that, at the pub. And it was just another one of those names that was a great name from my past that just deserved to have a beer named after it. So I went to Penn State, in the early nineties and in, 19 91, 19 92, if you knew the right people, which was my people. you, got your hands on, extremely high grade weed called, focal Banger. That was grown in central Pennsylvania and in those days way ahead of the game. and when it came around, it was superb. And so you could tell if you're at party and there's a room full of people at midnight and party's rocking, you could tell who had been touched by focal banger because they were either ear to ear smiles having the best time of their life, or they were sitting alone on the couch looking like a frightened squirrel, in panic mode,'cause it was extremely potent and could take you either way. But, so we knew, that was just a great name and it should be a beer. So I brewed that IPA called Focal Banger and. So one of my friends, the funny part about this story, is that many years later, actually, when we put it on at the pub, I remember I took a picture of the menu at the pub and I sent it to my friend Chaz out in Wyoming, and I said, check it out. See anything on there that's familiar. And he wrote, he just, I got like this tepid response. I was like, what the hell? And, never really didn't think much of it. but then years later, I had the chance to have the conversation with him. And I brought that up. He's yeah. He's do you realize he said it was Fogle Banger? Not Fogle. No. Come on. And the funny thing is that, the guy, his last name, who grew it, his name was Fogle. Oh my God. And I had no idea what his last name was. I only knew him by his first name. And, and so of course my friend Chaz didn't think, he was like, what the hell? So Focal Banger, big deal. the weed was called Focal Banger. And so all these years later, I found that out and I thought it was the funniest thing. and thank goodness, because this guy never came back after. That's amazing. So do you think all these Penn State kids are just mocking you when you came up with Focal Banger? oh no. I wasn't the only one calling it Focal Banger though. I don't know. I still don't think this guy's name's Focal. That's awesome. Made much more sense to be focal bang. Oh, because it definitely crossed your eyes. Pete, what about light and dark? Weren't you interested in how light and dark? what's this? I don't know. Did you guys run out of, names All of a sudden you have light and dark bazinga. He's been waiting to deliver that. Yeah, it's an ode too. He is. Had that in his back pocket. I'm no marketing major, but that wasn't the most creative. I appreciate your snark and sarcasm, Pete. but actually light and dark, it's an homage to, McSorley's in Manhattan, which is the oldest bar in Manhattan. And if anyone has ever been there, they can attest to it is one of the coolest bars you could ever go into. just that, Houdini used to drink there. John Lennon used to drink there, all these famous artists. And it's been there since the 18 hundreds. So when you go in there, You have two choices. You get a light or a dark. and I love that. We love that. just that simplicity of it, the lack of pretense. And so when those beers were designed, it's when people's attention and craft beer turned to laggers. they, everybody wanted to act as though laggers were this new amazing thing and this hot trend. It's people have been making laggers forever. the lack of pretense of naming a pilsner, a world class pilsner just light and a world class dark beard, just dark, keep it simple. It's not like the blah, blah, blah, simple, light, dark. It's like Norm when he went into Cheers. I'll just have a beer. Yeah, that's right. That was it. Lighter or dark. Alright. The last ones well, I'm curious about just say gay and shut the hell out. Oh yeah. Because Yeah, those are just say gay boy. We thought about that several years ago when all of the nasty legislation in Florida was going through and everywhere and we're out for a ski. And don't say gay. Don't say gay. And then it was like, just say gay. just say gay. Let we, let's do it here. I think it's in a moment of anger's all, we're like, that's bullshit. Let's do it. We're gonna do a beer called, just say Gay IPA and we'll give a portion to Pride But we'll really focus on the messaging. Yeah. and so that's what we did and it's been really popular and people love getting it, especially folks from Florida and bringing it home. And the big thing is we do donate. portion of the sales. But if you go to the website, there are resources to fight antigay legislation around the country. Yeah. Awesome. Just typical for you guys, just community. Yeah. stir the pot. Stir the pot. But just stirring the pot, but how is that stirring the pot, treating humans like humans? Do people get mad? Have you ever had someone come in and say, a hundred percent order this? That's hundred percent. Actually, I had a wonderful experience this past summer with a gentleman from Florida that I just relished in telling him what a little lying worm he was. and chasing him and his, not chasing them off. Just get'em off the property because, and it wasn't even because he didn't agree with it, he didn't agree with it and he had to make a scene and he actually pushed past the female employee Yeah. I don't, Hey, you don't have to agree with it and we're not gonna treat you any differently if you don't agree with it. But if you're gonna be an asshole about it, yeah. Tough shit, dude. Yeah. We'll come back 10 times, Uhuh. But also at this point, there are no secrets. When you come into the Alchemist, you pass Black Lives Matter. You pass our pride flag all welcome the pride flag, all our welcome, our Afro futuristic silo. if you're coming in and you don't agree with that, you're looking for trouble if you're gonna make a scene, because our American flag and our state flag, hundred percent. And it really, that's what really gets to me. it's don't you dare question, whether we're Patriots enough.'cause we have very different opinions of the definition of a patriot than some people in this country do. Yeah. And, and we're not gonna shy away and we're not gonna, we're not gonna kowtow and not. Have a say. Yep. Yeah. That's great. and we are a resort destination. We are a place people want to come. We have to be Welcoming to all people. we have to move forward. We really have to be a welcoming community. Yeah. It's part of what makes it a happy place, though, to me. Happy place. Part of the an open place. Yeah. An important part of our economy too, Yeah, for real. Yeah. And what was the other part? Shut the hell up. Oh, shut the hell up. That started back at the pub. that's an old Oh it is. It's an old one. That's an old one. And that was, of course, the, one of the best scenes in a otherwise questionable movie. Happy Gilmore. When grandma asked for a. A glass of milk and Adam Sandler, not Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller is the orderly. And he comes in, he's all sweet, and he says, how about a nice tall glass of shut the hell up. it was in response to people coming into our pub and just being douche bags, and arrogant and just being problems. Yeah. Not coming in and just being a gracious customer, but coming in with their baggage. And so we brewed that beer in response to that. And we actually got a tall 20 ounce glass. And we sold those pints and only that was served that. So we could offer people a nice tall glass to shut the hell up. That's awesome. So if anybody, you just did it'cause it was fun. But if you ever had somebody that was being an asshole, you'd be like, Hey, I have just the beer for you. And you offered to'em. And if they, if they clutch their pearls, you'd just be like, no, look, it's on the menu. That's dumb. But oftentimes it would flip people you would see it are there names out there hanging out that you wanna brew a beer for or you have names? No. that just all comes when it comes. It just comes when it comes. Nice. All right. Let's do some rapid fire questions. You guys want to eat? How about you? Each answer. All right. This or that style? Okay. All right. Brewing day or tasting day. Brewing day. What? Which I prefer? Yeah. Work or drink? just both the same. You gotta pick, you gotta pick. sure. Brewing day. All right. Hop farm visit or. Brewery tour or road trip. Oh, how far? Oh, how far is it? Come on, Jesus. Crazy. All those years raising Charlie, we never dragged him on brewery tours. Oh, good God. No. That's the last thing we want when we travel, is to go see other breweries. All right. Drinking a headie while lounging in a tube down the river or while sitting around A giant bonfire. Ah, both good. I would do the river and followed by the fire. Yeah, sure. Sounds like a great day. I think we covered this, but come up with a beer name first or the recipe first. It depends. Yeah, it depends. Sometimes I think of the beer first, and then we gotta come up with a name for it. Sometimes it just all depends. Yeah. A cachet of names that we pull from. Yeah. And things just happen. Yep. All right. Divide and conquer at work or do everything together. Oh, divide and conquer a hundred percent. Sure. Sometimes we do important stuff together, for sure. We make decisions, but God, we have to always, no, we have very well-defined rules, divisional labor. Sure. Oh gosh. And there is a ton of overlap. but we share an office and We spend every day together. But in the early days, the first 10 years, it was a hundred percent divide and conquer. Oh God. We didn't have time. Yeah. Sit around and talk about running brewing. Jesus, I would be down there brewing and if I had, I'd be cleaning and then Jen would come in and run that restaurant and do whatever had to be done during that. And yeah, all of that. He grew from six to three hand off the baby and then I'd work at night. Wow. Okay. I love this one. road trip playlist, John's music or Jen's music or podcast. Oh, we Octagon podcast. We have very, common likes of music, live music. Traveling for live music is one of our great passions. So we have certain things, there's certain things I listen to that she's not gonna listen to and vice versa. I know he doesn't play the death metal when I'm my car, but everything else where we are, a hundred percent. I remember that about you love that. Death metal stuff. Oh, there's a time. Incredible and place for everything. All right. If you could only drink one specific beer for the rest of your life, what would it be? Oh, that's easy for me. Yeah. Focal Banger. She's holding up. Me too. Jen. I don't know John. Yeah, sure. I'd take Hetty. Hedy. Yeah. Wow. fermentation Tank Explodes. Laugh or Cry first. Oh, That would be a horrible disaster. so can't cry because it would just, my only concern would be for human harm. Yeah. I could, neither one of us could give a shit about the tank or the beer. it's, it's all about safety and we're, We're psychos about that. Yeah. Love it. All right. Would you rather explain what a double IPA is to your thousandths tourist? Or explain why they should drink it from a can? Whatever. I'll answer any stupid question a million times. It's all, yeah. I'm just grateful to be living and have something that somebody wants to ask me about. I don't care. A hundred percent. There you go. We're just thankful for everything. Really good. Yeah. Sure. Last question, last one. Best part of owning the Alchemist Free Beer for Life or Perfect work life balance. Oh, it's a perfect work life balance. I would say Perfect work, but it's not. No, nothing's perfect. Nothing's perfect, but it's our life. It's our people. The free beer from life must be good too. Both. It all goes together. Come on. You make pottery. And I have nice coffee cups, Yeah. Cry into your coffee cup fell. That's not gonna bring you much solace. All right. Let's, let's just d dive a little bit into sto. You're such an important part of STO and STOs changed a lot In the last 10, 15, 20 years. what's your hope for STO in the next five to 10 years? No, that's a question we would gladly answer. Yeah. Jen, I'll let you go first. I love Stowe. I've been in Vermont pretty much my whole life. And I think there are a lot of great people and organizations that pave the way, but I would really love for our town and our organizations to move forward in being more inclusive. And more welcoming. I think there's a little bit of hesitation. I think it's really important for the future of our economy to really appeal to a diverse group of travelers. Yeah. Not just the old travelers we know of sto. Yeah. And then also. We do need to invest in housing. I don't think it necessarily needs to be in Stowe. I think we need to think about the Route 100 corridor and think about our community, not just as sto, but our greater community. Le Mole County, Hyde Park, Morrisville. That's our community. Yes. That's where our workers are. That's where people want to live because of the schools and the neighborhoods. So this idea that we need low income housing or accessible affordable housing on the mountain road is silly to me. Instead of that, let's think about Lemo County. That's our community, not Stowe. That's where we don't have any employees that live in Stowe. Maybe one aside from John and I. Yeah, And the idea that they wanna live in the old Snowflake. Come on. Nobody wants to live there. They want their community. So I think if we think about our community different, that would help a lot. That's what I think. I love that you guys are advocating for all that stuff. It's just amazing. And the town plan that is being discussed currently and the level of investment in town infrastructure has to happen. when you see a sidewalk that just ends when you see people running across the mountain road because there are no crosswalks or the crosswalk they're trying to use Is not that visible. Maybe it's not in the best spot and stuff like that. These are all things that I think everybody would like to see happen. But, for us running our business where we run our business, we're the defacto public toilet for the upper mountain road. Yep. we had to install more bathrooms because of that. there's land on that mountain road. There are places along that bike path where public bathroom facilities could be put and installed with. Thoughtful, easy to clean. bathrooms that can't be damaged, that can't be vandalized. there should be showers. You have a lot of people that are coming here, mountain biking, skiing, hiking, on the through on the trail We need to be thinking about stuff like this. There needs to be some place for people to use the facilities, like how many people are on that bike path and stop and just pee in the woods on that bike path.'cause there's no place else to go. And there's one porta-potty here and one porta-potty there. and that's something. But, imagine a town where we had amazing sidewalks that went all the way up the mountain road. that were well lit that there was. Centralized parking for people to park. at the event fields, there are properties on the upper mountain road that could be purchased and something like that could be done. none of us want these traffic jams in town, but when you start talking about, widening intersections in downtown I think the goal should be to get people out of their cars and walking. Mm-hmm. The people that come here for the outdoors are the kind of people that are going for hikes all day long and they're active people, and aside from that, just people that are disabled, that are in wheelchairs they deserve to enjoy what Vermont has to offer, which is being out in this beautiful environment and walking up and down the mountain road. We came through town a couple weeks ago in the evening, we had been to dinner in Waterbury and it was. Post, peak foliage, It was like a Wednesday evening. And as we walked, there were so many people walking around town. It was something that we had never really seen before. Stood first weekend in October. Yeah. It was really busy. It stood out as being strange and it was if these sidewalks were actually illuminated And all of that, it would transform this town and people would start parking and walking to dinner, not over loading the parking lots. And the intersections and everything else. People wanna walk. Assume. Yeah. Oh yeah. And the reality is there's a tight town budget and of course they would love to do this, but the, I'm gonna take this opportunity to say something that a lot of people just don't say. And the simple fact of the matter is, there are billionaires in this town, literal billionaires, with be. That for some reason, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of, public service being done with money. It seems like back in the 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, there was the Carnegies and these big families and they built museums and they built infrastructure and they built things for the public. They built parks and cities. They built all of this infrastructure and they put their name on it, rightfully so. There are people that live in this town right now that could fund a infrastructure project in this town without even thinking twice about it. And that's the reality of it. And I am. I'm waiting for people like this to step up. And if you love this town so much, you single handedly have the ability to transform this town for the next 100 years where we are all stressed, paying our taxes, trying to balance this budget, trying to meet it out, trying to keep the sidewalks operational, keep the roads paved, which we do is our town does an amazing job doing these things. but where is the philanthropy when it comes to stuff like that? Big ideas. Big ideas. And we're all on this earth for a blink and nothing you do really means jack shit.'cause in a hundred years they're not even gonna know your name. And a hundred years after that, you are so far gone, you'll never be thought of again. So what are you doing here? What are you doing with your money? Are you gonna, are you gonna give it to your kids that don't need it? Are you gonna give them hundreds of millions of dollars? Or would you do something meaningful for our town with that money? Yeah. I love that. It's my rant. It's awesome. A billion dollars. You could be damn sure. I would go down to that town, be like, what do you want? Yeah, we're doing it. We're you're gonna have the best sidewalk. Let's hope the, billionaires are listening to this podcast. I think though, aside from the philanthropy. I don't know what the budget looks like, but it seems to me we have such great resources. Yes. With our event fields. The jazz festival was there this year. Yeah. You see the mountains. It's right on the town. Sewer line. There are no public bathrooms. Yeah. Yeah. There's no grand stand. Like it could just be such a great resource. I just think we have resources that we need to come together to support. That's great. Alright, we wrap up all of our episodes with one question. If Stowe did not exist, it does not exist in the world, where would you be living? Where would, if you could live anywhere, where would you be living? Some other town in Vermont. All right. Yeah. yeah. Same. Yeah. Same. Another town in Vermont. So we love Vermont. It's like a warm blanket. Oh, can I answer May Vermont, Pete, Wilmington, North Carolina, Pete Will in three days tomorrow. All right. That was awesome. Thanks you guys. Thanks, Jerry. John, thank you guys. You are amazing. And thanks Pete for co-hosting today. Thank you for having me. That was scary as hell, but I loved it. And if you come back, Pete, you have a place to stay here. Thank you. Love you guys. Thank you. Yeah. Here at Mike's here. Hope you enjoyed that episode of the Octagon Podcast. Remember to like us on Instagram and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. See you next time.