The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - John Schoeb, Joe Reed, Derek Hornig & Brian Combs Joined Jerry Miller On The I Love CVille Show!

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

John Schoeb, Owner of Pro Re Nata Brewpub & Music Hall, Joe Reed, Owner and Director of Growth Strategy, Public Relations & Marketing at Pro Re Nata, Derek Hornig, Head Brewer at Pro Re Nata, and Brian Combs, Music & Media Manager at Pro Re Nata, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Seville Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on a glorious and gorgeous Wednesday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville. Today's program is one I have been absolutely excited about for, I'd say, about a month when we lined up the interviews some time ago. There's a brand, a beer brand, in Charlottesville that is one that is beloved in our family, in particular since we've moved to the west side of town, to the ivy side of town. It's one of the beer brands that offers fantastic liquid for guys like me who love

beer but also an opportunity for our kids my wife to have fun with their friends kids running around on a playground my wife having conversations at the foothills of the blue ridge mountains with one of the most beautiful views with her friends around a fire pit and an opportunity for us to enjoy that beer and that family time while listening to fantastic music. Pro Renata is known for what it's doing in Crozet, but after today's program, you're going to get to know Pro Renata as it expands into Stanton and across the Shenandoah Valley. Judah Wickhauer, the director and producer of the show, let's welcome through a studio camera shot and then some individual one-shots, please. The team behind Pro Granada Brew Pub,

I'd say maybe the fastest-growing beer brand right now in Central Virginia, Dr. John Shade. We start with you, my friend. We also have Brian Combs. We have newly-minted co-owner Joe Reed in a fantastic title, the Director of Growth, Strategy, Public Relations, and Marketing. That's badass right there. Derek Hornig in the house as well, and, of Relations, and Marketing. That's badass right there. Derek Hornig in the house as well.

And of course, Brian Combs who helped set up this interview. John, my friend, we'll start with you. How are you? Great. Happy to be here. Happy to be surrounded by my A-team. Some of our other A-team is back at Crozet headquarters watching us. But these are the guys that are going to take us to the next level.

This brand is evolving and it's evolving quickly. We're going to spotlight that evolution first, but first I'd love to humanize, localize, and personalize our guests, and we start with Mr. Joe Reed over here. Introduce yourself to everybody that's watching the program. Thanks for having us on today. I'm Joe Reed, Virginia born and raised. Spent some time here in Charlottesville at UVA. Went across the country for a few years, but this is home and it's good to be back. It's good to highlight that. First, we want to get Brian in the mix. This guy, I would say, one of the glue guys of Pro Renata. This guy makes things happen. Brian,

I love what you do. I appreciate what you do professionally. I sincerely mean that. I think you know that. Introduce yourself to the folks that are watching the program. Thanks, Jerry. Glad to be here. My name is Brian Combs. I've been with ProRenata since day one, actually six months before day one. It's been a real rollercoaster ride, and a lot of great things have happened over the last eight, nine years. Big things coming up. I do a lot of music there. I do a lot of the media. We've got a great stage at ProR Bonata. The music program is really growing. It's been just superb watching the brand evolve over the years. It's impressive. It's impressive. And part of that evolution is the addition of this man, Derek Hornig, whose brewing credentials, his beer-making credentials are known. They're

established. People respect this man considerably in the industry. The show is yours, Derek. Before we talk beer and your resume, how about you, the man, introduce yourself to everybody? Yep. Hi, everyone. I'm Derek. Thanks for having me, Jerry. I'm very nervous, but I'll do my best here, everybody. Do you want to slide that a little closer? Yeah, thank you, Brian. I've lived in the Central Virginia area pretty much my entire life. Grew up out in Nelson County, and I've been fortunate to be able to do this for a long time and have a big impact on Central Virginia beer. It's been fun. I've enjoyed it. I love what I do. The general of the team is Dr. John Shea.

Anywhere you want to go, I'm going to adapt to you. Evolution, I think, is the key word with what's happening with your brand. It is. And, you know, I've said this before on the show. I'm the head guy, kind of the visionary, but I need to surround myself with people. You know, Brian's been there from day one. None of this happens without a team. We're probably up to 30, 40 employees going to 40, 60, 70.

That's awesome. You know, without Lindsay, without Melissa, without Judy, without our maintenance guys, none of this happens. And we've been fortunate enough that these people have stayed around because they see the future. They see growth. They see it's a good place to work. I value everyone's opinion in there. I'm not the guy making day-to-day decisions. Bring your ideas, and if they're good, we're going to implement them.

You know, one of the things that we're doing at Pro Renan, and this is when we reached out to Derek, we're really going to up our beer game. I want to be the best. I talked to my partner, Andrew Messina, who without him none of this happens. And he said, let's try and be the best. Let's go out and find the best brewer that we can. And when word started to leak out that we had Derek, people were blown away because he's won. He's a very modest young man, but he's won Great American Beer Festival, World Cup.

We should brag on him. He's not going to do the bragging. Why don't we brag on him right here? So he has won a lot of awards and is coming from Basic City, which is arguably the best beer in the area, and it's because of Derek. He created those beers, and we want to tap into that market as well and really up our game.

The Skipping Rock facility is, Derek and I first talked, and he said, this is some of the best equipment I've ever seen, and I'd like to run it. And he goes, if we can get this set up the way that I want to do it, he goes, I think we can be the premier beer place in this area. So that's what we've done and created this facility. We've spent the last three months fixing some things over there that needed to be fixed.

The basics of it were beyond anything that we could have ever done at Pro Renata. And Derek is going in there and really upped the final little details that needed to be done. But this is a team thing. And this is where I love having Joe in here. Joe's always been on a team sport. I don't want an individual tennis player. I want a football player. I want a basketball player.

I want someone that has been on a team and knows how to work with other people. And that's where he comes in. My other partners are basically out of town and absent. Great partners, don't get me wrong. I need somebody locally that actually knows what's going on and that's where he's going to step in. The banker, Ricardo Cruz-Duran, watching on LinkedIn. John Blair, who's Mr. Stanton, watching the program right now. He says, we are beyond ecstatic to see Pro Renata coming to Stanton. I don't know if you or your guests are aware, but the Harrisonburg Chop House is opening up a branch in Stanton as well. The dining and brewery scene is popping on the other side of the

mountain. And that's from John Blair, who, as folks know, is the city attorney and the acting deputy city manager in Stanton right now. He's watching you guys on the program. Joe, I think this is news that is maybe one of the best kept secrets or the worst kept secrets out there. You are a co-owner of Pro Renata. Put the flip book of how you've become a co-owner of this fabulous brand into perspective. Yeah, so this all started, John and PRN, they were generous enough to allow me to come in and help me with some community service and some outreach with Waterboys. And from there, I truly fell in love with the area. I fell in love with everything about the brand.

And I just kept going back. And I'd say it's probably been well over three years now. I'm just at PRN all the time. And so I was having a really good night. And he said, I know what, I want to be a part of this. Just looking around, seeing how the team interacted with each other, seeing the laughs on everyone's faces

that's working there. And it's something that I wanted to be a part of. So I asked John if he was willing to talk about it. And here we are. Holly Foster watching the program at Henrico, Bill McChesney and McIntyre. Stephanie Wells-Rhodes in Keswick says, Joe Reed! Exclamation point, exclamation point.

Yay, it's Stephanie from the Wells family, formerly Interstate Pest Control. I still have your number two autographed jersey hanging on my coat closet door. Welcome home, Joe Reed, one of the fans, one of the orange and blue diehards giving you some props right now. Talk to us about how you take a brand to even further heights. Yeah, and so those comments alone, that's what we want to start tapping into. We want PRN to be the place to be to watch sports. You know, if UVA is having an away game, we want all those fans to come in, and we can live stream the game there. You know, they can come talk to me and talk about my time at UVA.

And the same on Sundays. There will be plenty of football to watch. So just being that sports hub, we'll have an incredible sports bar there for everybody this fall and onward. So, you know, I love those types of things. I want people to come up and, you know, they can bring the jersey to get another autograph. So really just tapping to that brand of being the place to be when there are sporting events going on um that's what we're looking to do kevin yancey

watching the program guys in waynesboro we got two tv stations on the feed right now and a newspaper can we put in perspective what's happening at the crozet location uh sure i mean it's we've we've moved over the skipping rock facility had some very large fermenting tanks that we're going to be using. We brought over some of our equipment there. And this is where Joe's going to come in, too. We're removing 95% of the brewing equipment in Crozet. Everything's going to be made at Skipping Rock. And I've tapped Joe and Todd Rath to create a unique type of sports bar where that brewing equipment used to be. We're going to be bringing in... Todd Rapp, Blue Toad Hard Cider owner. This guy knows liquid and alcoholic beverages inside and out. Great guy. Watches his program routinely. Todd's got great ideas. He and Joe have carte blanche to design this bar and TV area. How cool is it to sit down and watch an NFL football game with somebody that did it? That know, that's, that's, that's what we're looking for to sit down and have a conversation

with Joe on a Sunday, watching a game. You know, it's, it's, that's, that's a great experience. Alicia Sullivan, Sandy Smith, Christina Shoup, and Hope Okenu watching the program right now. You got media in the Valley watching us as we speak as well. Brian will get you in the mix. I want to get Derek in the mix as well. Why don't I start with Derek? I'm going to highlight some beers. The Basque Adipa from Basic City, the Double IPA,

one of my favorite beers out there. I mean, it's fantastic, dude. The Baby Basque is fantastic. My wife, one of my wife's favorite beers is the Six Lord. Basic City has figured out craft beer. You cut your teeth in some ways and got experience at one of the best breweries out there. How do you bring that experience to Pro Renata and elevate the game that is PRF? That's a complex question, I guess, Jerry.

But, I mean, it starts with having quality equipment and working with quality people, you know. Just to backtrack slightly on what you're saying, I have to give a lot of credit to the people that have worked with me and for me at Basic City. And, you know, a lot of the things we developed were, you know, pretty open source. As a brewer, I don't really believe in being a closed-door type of person. Any of the brewers that worked for me were free to come to me with things, and we would create beers that were theirs. We would create beers that were mine.

We did a lot of different things over a long period of time. We're still doing them. I'm still involved with Basic City on some level. And we have good equipment one of the nicest things that we got from skipping rock is the brew house that's there is a German manufactured system which is fairly unique certainly to this area and fairly unique to I would say American craft beer not a lot of American breweries have German made equipment so. So it's really nice.

It's a fairly lager-centric system, not to say that you can't make great beers across a wide spectrum on that equipment, but it has some capabilities that are somewhat specific to lager, which is important to both John and I. We both are big fans of lager and producing lager. I know you just mentioned a bunch of IPAs, which we will certainly be producing, but because of the equipment, we are going to definitely be pushing out quite a bit of lagers across a variety of styles. Bringing beers and elevating beers in a new brewery is a unique experience

because every brewery is completely different, and you can take the same recipe and brew it across the board at three different breweries, and the beer is going to be wildly different. So, you know, what I'm trying to do is create some new and interesting things for them, beers that are going to resonate in a new way. We should highlight this. And, John, make sure I'm using the right language here. Pro Renata and John's team purchased the assets from Skipping Rock.

And the primary asset purchased was the brewing equipment of Skipping Rock. And Skipping Rock had big dreams, but they had some bad luck when it came to the pandemic and COVID, in particular expanding to Main Street with the tap room, literally at the start of COVID. So some bad luck. They come in, John's team, they buy the brewing equipment. I don't want to put a dollar amount on this, but I'd say, just from a layman's perspective, that it's well over half a million dollars,

maybe around three quarters of a million dollars in brewing equipment, some of the best brewing equipment that is out there. Am I on the same page here? And then I'll take it a step further. When you make that kind of financial investment into a brand, the general is going to have some expectations.

Sure. But I mean, these are expectations that I've had with my staff at Crozet from day one. I lay out the expectations and I let people do their job. Nobody wants to be micromanaged by me. has been my brewer at Pro Renata for the last several years. He and Derek are friends, and Eric said, this might be a little above my pay grade. Would you consider talking to Derek? And these guys are friends, and they're working together. Derek has really taken Eric under his wing and is trying to get him to that next level.

I mean, Derek and I have had this conversation, and he starts talking about stuff. I'm out of the loop on this, Derek. I trust your decision making. I'm not going to be the guy that's hovering over him. And, you know, he can attest to that. And Derek has come to me and said, we need this, we need this, we need this. And I haven't told him no yet.

So are there expectations? Sure. But he's got a lot of pride. He's not, I really doubt he's gonna let us down you got a multiple uh beer competitors watching the show right now friends uh friends absolutely rising tide good for all ships um i'll throw this to brian you've been there from day one we go from and i've seen the evolution at crozet i can't wait to see what's happening in Stanton. I can't wait to see what's happening in the Valley. How do you see this growth scaling successfully and your contribution to that scale? Very curious to see what you have to

say. This is a guy that helps book the music, helps maintain the ambiance, helps position the brand digitally, in a lot of ways is telling the story of the brand. Show us yours on that. Scaling successfully, I mean, so like John and Derek have both mentioned, we're going to take now, all the beer is going to be brewed over at Skipping Rock. So since day one, I felt like the beers have always been really good at Pro Granada, but I felt like they could have always been just a little bit better. So I feel like we're going to take it to that next level beer-wise.

So scaling up, we'll be able to make the tanks are massive. We'll be able to make a lot more beer now. And the location in Stanton in general, I think Stanton has a couple of really good breweries already. And I think there's a need in the market for another one. So it's a good part of town. It's a good place to bring your family to. There's a little courtyard out back. Kids can hang out in.

Talk about music. I mean, music's important to us. So it's in kind of a neighborhood, Skipping Rock is. So we want to make, first of all, we want to make our neighbors happy. So the idea is to have music at the new Skipping Rock, former Skipping Rock location. It'll be scaled back. It'll be more acoustic bass, low key, you know, no drums. So we don't want to go in there guns blazing and blasting music, and that's not our agenda. So we want to be friendly to the neighbors, and we want the neighbors to come in and enjoy a pro and out of beer. And if they do have any problems, to come to us.

So pro and out, I think it's planning on closing at a pretty reasonable time. So it's not going to be a late party scene. So I just see a big need for this move. It checks off a lot of boxes, this move. It just came at a really, I live in Stanton, so it's really close to my house. I like that. So it just checks off a lot of boxes, and I think people are going to be surprised. A lot of people miss Skipping Rock.

They say, we hung out there. We miss it. What's Pro-Renog going to do? Are they going to bring back any of the Skipping Rock beers? Well, we're going to try to do what we can do. We're going to make really good beers. Music's going to be really good. So I think you're going to see a lot of great things. Kevin Higgins, watching the program. Dr. S has created a community within a very special community. That is extremely hard to do. PRN is a second

home to so many people. That is extremely hard to do. PRN is a second home to so many people. That is the key to success at PRN, the fact that it's a second home to so many people. I'll throw that to Joe, and I'll throw that to John. The brand's growing. How does the brand maintain its intimacy or that cheers factor when you go into PRN, you know half a dozen people bellied up to the bar? How do you maintain that human connection with the brand? Why don't I start with Joe on that?

I think it's all about the environment. Keeping the environment friendly. John and I were always at the door. As soon as you walk in, you can't miss us. So there are people that are coming up, saying hi to us, saying bye to us. So keeping that environment friendly, keeping the environment where you can bring your

kids, you can bring your entire family, bachelor trips, bachelorette trips. So being that getaway, but you can also be around your family, have a good time. You know, that's one, the first thing that brought me into PRN was just how loving it was and being around people that I love, that we could all have a good time. Same question, John. A lot of it, that's why Joe's here. You know, it's a friendly face. It's someone that the community knows and will get to know better. It's Lindsay saying hi to everyone as they walk through that door.

And we have so many regulars that come to Pro Renata that, you know, you see two, three times a week. Or you see a couple that, you know, once a month it's always there. It's a super easy place to go. And people are staying two and three hours. I've talked to you about this before. For dollars spent, if you go to a restaurant, spend $100, you're in and out an hour. If you're spending $100 at Pro Renata, you're there three, four hours. You're in and out an hour if you're spending a hundred bucks a pro renata you're there three four hours you're 25 bucks an hour now it's a much better value that's what's

on and in this world with inflation and so forth value means everything throw this to you Frank Messina watching the program got a lot of questions coming in questions about the food coming in right now I'll throw this to you about the food coming in right now. I'll throw this to you about the progranate croissant. What about the mindset, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? And progranate croissant has been wildly successful. Talk to us about that. Some folks are asking, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why change it? Boy, I've said this before, and Joe knows this. We cannot rest on our laurels. I don't want to be good. I want to be great. I mean, I've said this before, and Joe knows this, we cannot rest on our laurels. I don't want to be good.

I want to be great. I mean, I've said that to him so many times. I say it to Derek. I say it to Brian. We always have to improve. Unless your product is the best in the world out there and we're not, we're good, I want to be great. And I expect it of myself. I mean, Joe will tell you, I put in a lot of hours doing manual labor around that place,

and Joe's been jumping in and helping. It's not broken, but, boy, can it be improved. And that's what we're doing. Same topic to you, Joe. What are your thoughts on that? I agree. I feel like there's always another level that you can take a business or an establishment. It's never perfect.

So there's always room for growth. You know, I'm a team sport guy. Doesn't matter how well you play, there's always another level that you can take it for the next game. So it's definitely not broken. We're not fixing anything. We're just making it better. This question is a good one for Joe. You could live probably anywhere you wanted in the country. Why in Crozet? Why in this area? That is a great question. So UVA was my dream school. I got here around my eighth grade year for my first camp, walked around grounds, fell in love, and I told my parents whatever I had to do to go to UVA, it would be my college of choice. So I got to UVA, and I had a few teammates

who were actually from Crozet. And Crozet reminded me a lot of home. It was a rural area, but I still had access to Charlottesville. And another goal I had in place was when it was time to settle down and find a home, it would be Crozet. So everything pretty much lined up for me. And that's why I'm here. This is home. Great answer right there.

Folks, please. If I could just jump in. I want to tell two quick stories about Joe. Please. He's a very, very modest young man. He finished UVA in three years playing a D1 sport. That's amazing. That's amazing. And another story.

Faster than I did, Joe. I didn't play any sports. Go ahead. One of our bussers and team members over at Pro Renata is a Western Albemarle football player. And he came by one day, and Joe was there, and he's like, hey, coach. And I said to him, how do you know him? He goes, oh, he's coach. He helps coach at the high school.

And Joe went away, and a young man came back over. I said, do you know who that is? He goes, yeah, that's coach. And I said, no, do you you know who that is he goes yeah that's coach and i said no do you actually know who that is he had no idea joe didn't introduce himself as uva super stud chargers bears this and that he was just the guy there to help this this this young man out and that's that's the quality of person i want to be around and that's why joe's joe's with us that's very well said um brian frankie and max moore giving you guys some props musicians come out when pro renata is on the show and i think that's a Joe's with us. That's very well said. Brian Franke and Max Moore are giving you guys some props. The musicians come out when Pro Renata is on the show,

and I think that's a Brian Combs influence right there. I'll throw this to you guys. When it comes to the ambiance, and this is a perfect question for you, Derek. When it comes to the ambiance, it's check, A++. When it comes to family-friendly, it's A++. When it comes to the foothills of the Blue Ridge and the views, it's A+++. When it comes to the food, I mean, you've added Dino to the team over at Crozet, A+++. I love the hot drone. I'm a big fan of it. As you can tell, I love IPAs. You guys have kind of hinted at it. There have been some circumstances where maybe the beer couldn't be improved a little bit. I think that's fair to say.

That's where you come into play. Do you feel pressure in that regard? No, not really, to be honest, Jerry. This is what I've done for almost my entire adult career. I love what I do. It's uncomfortable for me to say it, but I am pretty good at what I do, and I enjoy it a lot.

And one of the things that Joe sort of hinted at already is you have to be willing to challenge yourself and to continue to try and push and improve the things that you do. So I don't ever consider brands of beer to be finished. I'm always working on things and always trying to get better at the things you do. Beer is a really fascinating thing and being a brewer is a really fascinating thing to do for

a living because you're a lifelong student of this and it never stops. There are so many things that you don't know that you don't know and that you learn through communicating with other brewers. And I continue to read publications and listen to podcasts and interface with other people and start to understand their approach to things. And there really is a lot of right ways to do things in this business. So it's never-ending.

So the only thing I don't feel, I feel a lot of pressure being here on this show right now. I don't really feel very much pressure producing beer and working in the brewery because that's my life's work and it's what I do and I love it. This is a great question that's coming from Lynchburg. Does the Pro Renata family have any interest

in expanding like some of the other breweries into liquor or seltzers or beyond? Is this for me? Go anywhere. I don't have very much interest in producing seltzer. I can tell you that. Because that's what we're seeing some beer brands do. Well, yeah, of course.

We're going to have cocktails on site in Stanton. We have a lot of RTDs and stuff in Crozet. RTD? Ready to drink. Ready to drink. The canned cocktails. Water words. RTD? Ready to drink. Ready to drink. The canned cocktails. Water records. Gotcha.

Pine nuts. Gotcha. For me, I think there's people that are producing that and they're doing it really well and they can have it. I'll stick with what I do, which is making beer, and I'll try to do that as well as I can. We're not trying to get in every avenue and do this stuff. We make beer. We've talked about some RTDs., liquor, wine, all this other stuff. No, no.

There's so many people out there. I don't want to make cider. Todd Rath makes great cider. It's okay. It's great. We work well with them. The Waterbirds was a great product. Waterbird, massive exit, as you guys know.

I mean, we felt it. The Craig family did extremely well on the waterbird exit maybe that's a perfect segue into everyone here's a goal guy goal-oriented person uh business people here what is there an exit strategy what are the long-term goals for the brand we've been approached in the past and it's just it's not the right time we and we enjoy i enjoy what i do i like working with these people. Um, one of the things, and this is one of the focuses of your show is the real estate. And that's, that's one of the reasons I'm bringing Joe in is so that I can focus on the next two projects, you know, with,

with Chip Clark's group, with the steam plant and the Coca-Cola building. I've got the next three years or four years of my life involved in those that I'm not going to be, even though I'm not the day-to-day guy, you know, I want to turn that over to somebody. There's so many smart real estate people out there that are doing things. You know, I follow, I follow those trends and where these other builders are going, I'm following. I got a good friend of mine, Pat Schultz, who's Ryan Holmes. He's real bullish on Stanton. Greenwood. I'm really bullish on Stanton. I think the affordability

on Stanton is going to open up an entirely new demographic of folks that are getting priced out of Charlottesville and Albemarle and Central Virginia. And as that demographic flocks to Stanton, there's going to be massive disposable income there to spend at consumer brands. There's some really smart people and I follow what they do in this area. And if they're going there, I'm looking at going there too. Charlottesville is just so expensive.

I couldn't play this game here, what we're doing over in Stanton. I had a conversation with John Blair a while back about how things are going in there. He sees what's happening over there. He's part of it. And we just want to get a little piece of it and become part of that community and restore these historic buildings. Again, we weren't looking to purchase the Skipping Rock. It just kind of fell in place. Would you you have done and you've brought this up in the past would you have executed this kind of growth strategy in almar county if given the opportunity by government no it was not viable no okay it's almar county is a is is a county for big boys i'm a little guy okay um i put that in perspective what you mean by that um i mean there there there's some, these developers are super smart people with incredible backing.

We're just a little guy that got lucky at ProRainata, and we have a little extra cash, and we want to expand our brand. Okay. That's all we're doing. Creating a fun place for people, quality product, safe, and working with people I like. i i love my job right now i mean it's so much better than being a dentist oh my god one sarmento giving brian combs props he says kudos to brian combs for bringing the thursday earn the stage show helping local bands get notice i want to talk about the fact that you now have how many venues are under your purview now, Brian? Well, we had Peronata and Crozet.

Yeah. That's kind of our staple, our flagship music venue. Right. And then, you know, we'll have the Stanton, the Skipping Rock location, we'll have some music there as well. And then the Coca-Cola building is going to be, you know, when that happens you're going to hear a lot about that. That will be a great music venue eventually.

That's three. And then the Steam Plant building as well in Stanton as well, which is in the works. So you're going to have four venues potentially. Yes. Is the game plan, I'm a sports guy here, almost like a farm system type, maybe that's not the right word. That's the right word. Like a smaller venue to the major leagues, to the NF, if you may?

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I get approached by so many bands that want to play, and we're trying to accommodate as many as we can, and we're booked out to the end of the year already, and a lot of the bands that we have, returning bands that we have, have sort of, they've worked their way up the paces. They kind of started off small, and they came, and some of them played for free you know they won't come and play for free have at it and some of them have really promoted themselves and then built a great

big following you know barons are just a great example of a band that wanted to play a pro and they came and they sort of set up outside and they just prove themselves and now look where they're at. So we did. We started kind of a Thursday night music called Earn the Stage and that's for bands to kind of, not only, you know, we've got a lot of bands that are really, really talented, but it's more than that. You've got to be talented and you've got to get the word out. You've got to

have something unique to offer. So the bands that play on Thursdays, they kind of market themselves. They bring their crowd out play on Thursdays, they market themselves, they bring their crowd out, they get an hour in the spotlight to showcase what they have, to bring the energy. And then they do well, and we have them back. The crowd votes. The crowd kind of votes. The crowd votes.

And we started bringing those bands back already. They came out, they showed us what they had, they advertised, they marketed, they brought people, they were great musicians. Now they're coming back. And so it's earned the stage. And then every other Thursday we do earned the stage and it, it brings a good crowd. And it's, it's, it's something Brian and I came up with. And, you know, we want to continue that trend. When we see bands like the Barons go from so small to pro Renata, these guys are booking the Jefferson, which is a great facility. They're down in Richmond now.

I love seeing bands that started at our place become successful. I'm not jealous at all. When they play these big venues, just remember us little guys one day. I love that. Viewers and listeners are bringing the comments. This is a good one here for you guys.

Open-ended for anyone at the table. Any at the table. Maybe, Derek, you start on this one here. I love beer. I love craft beer. Seriously. Ask my family, ask my wife. I love it. I genuinely love it. My wife loves it. My family loves it. Gen Z. Is the market share with Gen Z with craft beer, is it sliding a little bit? Is it shrinking a little bit with Gen Z, the younger generation here? And I'll throw this to you here, and I'll get out of your way. If the Gen Z, the consumer of maybe tomorrow, is considering other liquid

potentially, or as John has highlighted, we're in a tough inflationary environment where every dollar counts. I mean, the grocery bill is ridiculous. Family of four here, wife and two boys, six-year-old and a 20-month-old, 300 easy every week. Easy every week for grocers. Talk to me about the inflationary environment as it pertains to craft beer and Gen Z's appetite or palate for liquid. Oh man, I mean, that's a challenging multifaceted question there. I think if I was going to answer that in a quick way, it would be that I think on-site consumption, places where people are having an experience going to meet with people, is going to be less affected.

I think certainly that brands that are in the wholesale space are going to face some challenges, you know, and the inflationary moment in time that we're in is definitely creating some real challenges. I mean, people are only going to pay a certain price for a six-pack or a four-pack of beer, and costs are rising on the supply side, too. So, you know, it's a challenging space to be, and I think... And more competitors in the space. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I think a lot of breweries are closing too, and things are going both directions. But one of the most important things, I think, as a brewer, and one of the things that I've learned a lot over the course of the last five, six years, is that how you market things and the way that you interface with your customer

and the way that you describe your products, all those things are super important and that can, can really help to, to reach people. And, you know, as a brewery, you have to learn to not be selfish and to produce beers that people want. And, you know, it's not a hundred percent about me, you know, my father loves multi-beer, you know, we have these and you know scottish beers and stuff like that and uh he's always like when are you gonna put that on i'm like well probably never uh because you know it's it's very challenging to sell certain things and um you know it's uh we do your best to provide a nice wide spectrum of beer but um you have to uh you have to keep up with what's going on and stay contemporary. Brisk, the band watching the program.

Great job, fellows. Welcome aboard, Joe. Eric Slusser, me and the rest of the guys from Creedence Clearwater Recital, the premier CCR tribute band, love playing pro renato. What an awesome venue. They were great. I want to throw that same topic to Joe and John. I mean, that's a nuanced topic there about the changing palette of a Gen Z consumer

and the inflationary nature of today's economy and the price tag of a pint of beer either at the pub or the price tag of a six pack on the shelves of the retail location. Some six packs now we're talking $15, $16, $17 17 18 dollars for a sixer here the four pack the tall boy four pack same price um anywhere you want to go on this topic maybe joe you start with this i'm curious of what you have to say yeah so i mean technically i'm i think i'm a gen z and we kind of look for a one-stop shop that's one thing you can get at pro renata food um if you want beer you can get beer if you can get beer. If you want a water bird,

you can get a water bird. So there's a one-stop shop. You can drink, you can have fun. And that way we aren't bouncing around from place to place to go get a drink and then go get food. So I think as a fellow Gen Z, that's the ideal location for us. We can do everything at one time. John, your thoughts? Great answer right there. Again, that's one of the reasons why I brought Joe on. He brings that younger generation. I'm 57 years old. He's 26. We see things completely differently. He's been tasked with bringing in that younger crowd.

Again, for value, you're spending way more time at Pro Renato than just a restaurant. You can come to Pro Renato and not spend a dime and your kids can still play on the playground. But we've got Dino's ice cream. We've got Dino's pizza. We've got plenty of parking. This is tough times in this country. The inflation is really, really hurting people. Christina Shoup, welcome to the show. You've got five media outlets by my count watching you guys here. I think the genius of what you guys are doing is the omni-experiential nature of the brand.

And I can go there as a diehard sports fan and watch sports and drink a hop drone or three. My wife can go there. She may be, she loves IPAs, but if she's hanging out with her friends, they're having high nudes or water birds and they're around the fire pit. Our kids are running around. They're lunatics around the playground.

We can kind of watch them from 20 feet away, but be not too close because they drive us crazy. We love them. We truly, truly do. But any parent can relate to that. Brian's got the music piece crushing. You got axe throwing. You've got the food. I mean, it's just, you're

offering a lot. And it seems to me, and I'll get out of your way, it seems to me that the winners in this space are going to be the ones that created a destination where it's a destination to go for the family. And it's not just about the liquid. The liquid is key.

The liquid is key. but the destination seems to be what's going to separate the winners and the losers. 100%. I can't tell you the last time I went to just a brew pub that didn't have food or music just to sit down and have a beer. It just doesn't exist. I need more than that. And that's where we've gone with Pro Renata.

And we have a lot of new things coming. I mean, this is the tip of the iceberg of what's coming. And we just, we look at things every single day. We have our meetings on Tuesdays. We celebrate the last week for about 20 minutes and then it's what's next. It's this, everything matters. We don't take our customers for granted. We don't take their, you know, them spending money with us for granted. I want to make sure that they're feeling they're getting their money's worth and they're coming back. That's important. I'm seeing half a dozen questions about distro. It's not happening. So many. How often do you get that question? All the time. And this is one of the reasons that Derek has come on board.

Yeah. Distribution is an awful business. It's just not. The margins are super slim for those that are asking. It's, we're, one of the things, and Derek and I were talking about this, I think it was yesterday. You can get our beer in-house for a lot cheaper than you're going to get at the grocery store. Come by and pick it up at our place. We never had a canning line before. We got a phenomenal canning line that's coming. And Derek has, you know, said to me, be prepared. You have no idea what's going to happen. In-house sales, I don't want to get into distribution.

Friends of ours in the restaurant business, yeah, we can do a one-off here or there. What's that mean? Keg for a restaurant? Yeah, keg for a restaurant. Place that I go, that I'm friends with an owner, sure, we can do that because we can self-distribute now up to 1,000 kegs a year. But do I want to get in that I'm friends with an owner, sure, we can do that because we can self-distribute now up to 1,000 kegs a year. But do I want to get in that market? No. I mean, I don't think that's where Derek wants to go either. That was one of the reasons he came on.

Wholesale's a challenging space to be. Everyone that is in this business can relate to that right now. It's just tough. And John sort of alluded to it here, but one of the things you're going to see is a much more increased presence of packaged product in the ProNado locations to take home and take away. Options have been a little bit limited in the past and we're going to really, really expand on that. Working on some new label designs and some things to sort of bring more variety of beer and for me what's really fascinating and interesting

I think is that we'll be able to provide some styles in the coolers on site that you don't really see in wholesale anymore. If we want to do a German Hefeweizen, let's say, we can throw a little bit of that in cans and have it there available for customers. You shop in the grocery stores, obviously, you know, things have been pretty narrowed as far as the variety that you see in the stores and on the shelves these days as far as the breadth of styles of beer that are available. We'll wind the interview down. Viewers and listeners, let us know if you have questions. I see them coming in.

I'm going to get to as many of these as possible. We're not going to get to all these guys. How do you see the revenue stream shaking out? Like an order of importance of this? Because I'm seeing so many, dude. I'm seeing the potential. I don't know if you're going down this road. I think you have going down this road in the past. Ticket sales with music. I'm seeing the food consumption. I'm seeing on site retail, which your key guy here is saying is going to boom and blow up. Probably your fattest margin is just pour a beer into a pint right at the bar and have someone pay seven, eight bucks for it. I'm seeing the music being able to blossom. I'm seeing events being able for it. I'm seeing the music being able to blossom.

I'm seeing events being able to blossom. How do you see these revenue streams shaking out? Well, all of those things allow us not to have to distribute. And that's why each and every one of those is so important. I don't know, and Derek could attest to this, I don't know of any other brewery our size that doesn't distribute. We are really, really fortunate not to have to do that to make ends meet. And again, I'm happy with working with other businesses that do things and do them well

and bring them into Pro Rainata and we all make a little bit of money on it. You know, again, this goes back to Todd Rath in cider. He makes great cider. He does. I don't want to compete with that. Todd, he's there all the time helping us out, giving us ideas. Our food people, it's okay. I have a saying, it's okay if everybody makes a little money.

Is there a beer brand that Pro Renata looks up to or may try to emulate the path of growth revolution? I haven't thought that far into it, Jerry. I really haven't. I never thought it was going to be what it is right now. The growth that we've experienced over the years is far more than what I ever thought. I really haven't gone down that road of what an exit strategy completely looks like. They never happen.

I mean, Joe may be running the whole show one day. I don't know. I love that. I'll throw that same one to Joe. Is there a brand out there that you've seen execute really well? A beer brand? Similar, John. I haven't thought that far ahead either.

The brand that I fell in love with was Pro Renata and that's why I'm here for me that's the brand that I'm emulating day to day I love it, Derek for you who does beer the best

oh man I mean that's an impossible question how about a few there's a lot of breweries around the country that I respect a lot. I have... Who was the one you gave me the other day? Von Trapp. We had some Von Trapp stuff from up in Vermont.

Cool brewery, great lagers. Yeah, I mean, I like good lager beer. It's what I primarily drink, although I do brew and drink IPAs pretty often as well. Yeah, I mean, it's too many to list, really, Jerry, to be honest with you. We're focusing on ourselves. Totally got it. Totally got it.

Respect that. I mean, I've said to him a bunch of times, we're not doing that because everybody else does it. Respect that. I'm not looking to what other people are doing. We're doing our own thing, and it's working, so we're just going to stay with it. I love it. All right, we'll close the fantastic interview, interview guys 50 minutes straight with the prn team john anything note wise news wise that needs to get out there that we haven't covered on the show so uh we are looking at

opening pro renata plus two weeks from thursday okay we are licensing and everything is finished, approved. We're waiting on one piece of paper. We're going to open up Thursday the 22nd or is it 23rd? And let them know the who, what, when, where, why of Pro Renata Plus. Judah, we can cut this into a highlight clip and get it out there so the community knows here. Why don't you cue the sizzle reel here tell us about pro renata plus so pro renata plus we are looking right now at opening up on uh two weeks from this thursday which is the 22nd of august and our licensing and everything is done our food stuff is ready to go we've got some final details that we're working out and staff has been hired. We're still looking for some more, but we, we were almost fully staffed with that. And the location

just has some fine tuning to do. And we're, we're fired up. What can we expect with Pro Renata Plus? So it's, it's Pro Renata and the plus is we're actually having liquor as well. There is a kitchen inside that we're going to be doing pizzas and really good salads. I'm a salad guy. I don't look like it, but I am. Lindsay's going to be staffing that and helping us with that. I want to have the best pizza and the freshest salads in the area. And then our food group is the B&C group that was out at Pro Renata a couple times a week.

It's Bo and Charlie Murchie, who I know you know. Yeah, the musicians. Yep. So one is the lead guitar for Disco Risque, which is a phenomenal group. Those guys are going to be outside in our 49-foot food truck doing their Southern Cuisine Twist. Fantastic. This is coming. Where's the location,

Pro Granada Plus? I know you've said it. It's at the old Skipping Rock location, 414 Parkersburg Turnpike in Stanton. You guys are going to crush it. We're looking forward to it. I've got a great team and they're fired up for this. My guys cannot wait. I'm fired up. I love the success

of local businesses. I love spotlighting success stories on this platform. These fellas have it dialed in and buttoned up. Thank you for everybody that's watching. Lindsey Curl closes it perfectly. Let's go with the hands up emoji right there.

Dr. John Shave, guys. Joe Reed, Brian Cobes, just a fantastic beer maker and Derek Hornig. This is the Pro Renata team, part of the Pro Renata team, key personnel of the team. And that's the Wednesday edition of the I Love Seville show.

Get ready for this beer brand, guys, to capture even more market share. They got this figured out, and it's pretty clear. Judah Wickower, our blue guy behind the camera, this show airs wherever you get your social media or podcasting content. Tomorrow on the program, all the news and notes from a community that we love absolutely dearly for the team for judah my name is jerry miller have a good afternoon and take care awesome he's gonna tell us when the mics and cameras are off it will be off about five Thank you.