Innovation on Tap: Anthony Bernas and the Cooler Keg Revolution

Discover the future of outdoor refreshment as I, Mike Murphy, sit down with the visionary Anthony Bernas to unwrap the innovation behind the Cooler Keg. As we share a conversation brimming with ingenuity, Anthony unveils how this portable kegerator is redefining enjoyment of draft beverages from the sandy shores of a beach to the intimate setting of a backyard gathering. This nifty creation isn't just about keeping your drinks cold; it's a full-fledged draft system smartly tucked into a cooler, ready to serve up anything from frothy beers to sparkling seltzers with a professional edge.

The episode sees us tracing the Cooler Keg's transformation from a makeshift prototype to an elegantly designed, social event must-have, all through Anthony's engaging narrative. We even explore a ground-breaking partnership that's scripting the future of beverage service with robotic precision – imagine your drink delivered by a friendly robot the next time you're at an airport or theme park! Tune in to absorb the creative passion that's poured into the Cooler Keg, and get inspired to elevate your own entertainment experiences with this remarkable invention. Join us as we toast to innovation, community, and the shared delight of a perfectly chilled draft, wherever life takes you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Thank you, charlie. Yes, I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We bring local business owners from the community to your computers, to your televisions. We want you to know local business owners as people, as humans, and hear their deeper why, hear their story, so that you can care about them and know them as more than just a logo on a business card. So with me today is somebody who I recently met and I was intrigued by a product that he and friends of his invented. I think it's one of the cooler things ever Cooler, being kind of one of the key words in that description, and you'll find out why in a moment. With me today is Anthony Bernis. He is the co-inventor, I believe, of the Cooler Keg. So, anthony, welcome to the show and tell us all about the Cooler Keg.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so the Cooler Keg is a, basically it's a portable kegerator. You know, I call it a portable draft system built into a picnic cooler, but it allows you to take, whether it's draft beer or even, you know, draft cocktails, cider, seltzer, you know anything you actually want to drink, uh, and serve it on draft anywhere. So, basically, if you can take a picnic cooler there, you, you know, cans and bottles can be left behind.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Now you can have draft. That's interesting. So I've seen, I've seen photos of it. I've seen pictures of it. I've had a chance to kind of do a drill down and understand it better. But if somebody were to just look at a, say, a photo of your product, Cooler Keg, they may assume certain things about it. Yes, and so I want to make sure that people understand how. How does it work? What's the concept behind it? So yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:04

So a lot of people see our product and they mistake it for what they see at, like beer festivals. So if you've ever been to, you know an event where they've got like you know 20, 30 breweries there and you walk around with a little itty bitty tasting glass and you go to the different booths and they'll have a cooler that has tap handles connected to it and they serve you a little two to three ounce pour of you know certain beers they have available and that's called a jockey box and what it is is that's a cooler that just has a chiller inside of the cooler and they've got full kegs, full CO2 systems under the table and then the beer is flash chilled at the last second before it serves. So a lot of people see a product and say, oh, it's a jockey box. I've had one of those for years. I know what that is and it's like no, what this is actually is the entire draft system inside of the cooler itself. So you don't have a keg outside of the cooler, you don't have a CO2 system. Everything has been made smaller to fit inside of the cooler itself. So you've got ice packs, you've got kegs, the CO2 system and even the draft tower itself snugs inside the cooler for transporting and then when you get to where you're going, you just attach the tower and attach the two draft lines. With two clicks and you're able to serve draft.

Speaker 3: 3:10

You know at the beach, at the lake, you know at a tailgate, you know in your backyard, anywhere you want to take it. So it does. It's a little bit different than the other things people have seen previously on the market. Um, because not only that, the kegs come with with it.

Speaker 3: 3:24

So another common question is oh, you know, I've never seen a keg like that. You know, I've never seen those at Party Source or you know wherever they might get a pony keg and it's like well, no, these kegs come with it and they come empty and you fill it yourself. So you can take it to Braxton, you can take it to, you know, ryan guys, wherever you want to go and get it filled like a growler If you're looking for fresh draft beer. But at home you can also just crack open cans and bottles and fill it up before you head out onto the boat, and now you don't have to deal with, you know, empties. At the end of the day you can also fill with rum and Coke margaritas, you know whatever you want to drink, and that's what makes it fun.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Yeah, and you can have cause. It comes with two quote unquote kegs right, correct, that you can fill with whatever you want. So you can have a one side an alcoholic beverage and on the other side non-alcohol correct, correct. And so you're using a self-contained CO2 system with the little cartridges and the lines and all that, exactly. So it feels very much like, you know, in my day. You know, back in college we had the keg on ice with our CO2 system or the old pump system, whatever.

Speaker 3: 4:35

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 4:35

You know there's a lot of work there, but you know it was worth it. So you've got the little tap that you're dispensing into your glass. So it has that same feel, but it's just a whole different. Take on that and you can, you're, you're investing in that system, but you're able to reinvent it every single time, every single time you go to an event or whatever, or, or you know, host a, host a party. So I think it's really unique in that regard. I like the fact that whatever you want to dispense into your glass, you're in total control of that, and that's really cool, exactly.

Speaker 3: 5:11

Because I mean otherwise you have to go to the store and you're like in the keg section, you're like let's see what they have available. And if your favorite brewery down the street only has certain styles of beer available in the tap room, well now you can go there and actually take those to your next barbecue. You can take that you know home to your you know man cave in the basement or you know, having a picnic in your own backyard, so it just yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:35

it's a lot more fun that way, because it also allows you to support local businesses instead of just whatever you know big box options they have at the store.

Speaker 2: 5:45

Yeah, plus, it makes you incredibly cool when people come to your party and they're like hey, what's this?

Speaker 3: 5:47

oh, just you know it's just a stainless steel picnic cooler. You know it's, it is very shiny, but it shows up and then all of a sudden you open the lid and you have an entire kegerator inside and you take out. You know, literally the draft tower is the same type of draft tower you would see on a kegerator at the bar or at a restaurant, and so when you hook it up it's like oh whoa, that's, you know. You know, unlike a keg, for example, where you have a little like thing that you have to pump on top and a little rubber hose and you just pull that. You know, this has the same look and feel. You're literally bringing the bar with you wherever you go.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Right. One thing I've worried about, or not worried about, but wondered about, is if you've got a situation where somebody likes beer, somebody likes wine I know, with the CO2 system it injects, there's carbonation, right, correct. So if, if my wife wants, you know, a Cabernet, pinot Grigio, whatever, I'm going to drink that, how is it with a carbonated wine? Does it taste okay? What's that feel?

Speaker 3: 6:45

look like. So right now our system works off of CO2. So that's all your carbonated beverages. So we are working on a Argon and nitrogen kit, and so Argon will allow you to serve wine, because Argon will never get absorbed into the liquid, and then nitrogen will allow you to do cold brew nitrogen, like cold brew coffee as well as like Guinness. Currently, with the co2, the way it works, it will.

Speaker 3: 7:10

So, for example, if you have it filled with fresh draft beer, it'll maintain that carbonation and keep the draft, you know, fresh for like a month. You put in cans and bottles again, it'll maintain the carbonation. If you put in, let's say, margaritas, it's going to serve them as is, you know, no carbonation, you know, for probably four to six hours. But under pressure, whether it's wine, margaritas, cosmopolitans, I don't care what you're drinking If you put them in a couple of days ahead of time, it will become carbonated. So like, for example, if you wanted to fill it with wine for a party and you knew your guests were going to, you know, finish it within four or five hours, not a problem In the long run, after two or three days, yeah, you'll get carbonated margaritas.

Speaker 2: 7:54

It adds a fun twist to what you're going to drink, all right, yeah, but a twist that some might not appreciate. Some will, but I think, all right, you've just kind of explained that quandary, you know, I'm like, yeah, what's?

Speaker 3: 8:11

that carbonated wine going to taste like. For that I would wait on the Argon. Nobody needs a carbonated Cabernet.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Sauvignon. The point is, I mean, you've kind of thought ahead to all these situations and scenarios and you're always innovating and you're always bringing new things to market alongside the cooler keg. So who else was involved in this idea? Who's on your team so?

Speaker 3: 8:36

primarily it's just two co-founders, so it's myself and Racine Gruberman, my better half. So we've been together for 14 years and her parents actually retired to a lake in Michigan and so we would go up to her parents' lake house with some friends, you know, for a weekend in the summer because it's just gorgeous and they've got a little. You know, they got a pontoon boat and we would just go and relax and, you know, party with friends at the lake. And it was actually there that we kind of came up with the idea, because each year we would go we'd get a little bit better at having fun on the water. So the first year we went we had all kind of you know, people had the donut style floats and some people had this. We had one guy on pool noodles, you know, it was just a mess people all over the place. So the next year we all had better floats and then we got like paracords and carabiners so that nobody would float away.

Speaker 3: 9:25

And after a couple of years of going out there, eventually that's where somebody came up with a question like you know, what are we going to do next year? That's better. And that's when I was like next year we need a swim up bar and I'm a project guy. So I was like I like hammers and I like nails. So I was like I'll build anything. And I was like not even in the boat. You know, I could drag a kegerator onto the boat with a power converter and plug it in. He's like no, no, no, he was in the water and that's that's where the idea was born. So it was made to make having fun a little bit more fun.

Speaker 2: 9:59

Right, yeah, we, we say um uh, necessity is the mother of invention. So we all have different necessities in our lives, and that was certainly one of them.

Speaker 3: 10:11

Yeah, coming up with an idea. They always say that, like you know, you're not coming up with an idea, You're solving a problem, because if you're not solving the problem, you don't. You don't have a product. So, what was the problem? You saw?

Speaker 2: 10:22

It's like well, draft beer wasn't portable. Was there ever a time, when you were going through all the incarnations and trying to figure this out, that you said okay, I'm done, it's not going to work, forget it? Or were you just hell bent and determined you were going to do?

Speaker 3: 10:35

it. I was like, oh never. We just kept finding better and better solutions to the problem, because the first iteration was very functional but not as, not as pretty as the current version.

Speaker 2: 10:48

It involved a little bit more PVC pipe and trips to Home Depot okay yeah, it looked like a true prototype, exactly yeah, but your product as it exists right now looks very finished, very professional, very intended and I give a lot of that credit to Racine.

Speaker 3: 11:08

You know her background is in design and user experience and you know, working together just keep, you know, every single little aspect. We just kept making it better and better, you know, through trial and error, making it as refined as possible.

Speaker 2: 11:23

I was telling you earlier. Excuse me, I think one of the things that I hadn't initially thought about, but it just kind of hit me like duh, and that is the name of the cooler keg isn't just like cause, it's a cooler and a keg, but it's actually cooler, it's a cooler keg. Hey, this is cool.

Speaker 3: 11:40

Okay, cause it's like. You know, our whole lives is like what's available on draft, it's only beer. You know, sometimes you might like they're starting to see more seltzers available on draft, but it was just like why don't we have more options of what's in a keg?

Speaker 2: 11:55

You know we need a cooler keg. Well, there are tons of people that you know they're building some really cool outdoor spaces at their home. You know they've got some really nice outdoor entertainment areas. Yes, and you know beverages adult or otherwise, are just kind of a part of that Yep, and I love that this also kind of fits right into that niche of. I need something cool out here, something different, you know. And so if people see your product, it's not only functional but saves space. I like that. It saves on waste and allows for better taste. Exactly, it solves a lot of problems that aren't really instinctive at first, but when you really dive into the product and you see how it's used, when you see the makeup of it, there's so many benefits, so many benefits. So if somebody wants to actually lay eyes on this product, where do they go? What do they do?

Speaker 3: 12:57

So the website is the cooler kegcom and that's cooler with a C and keg witha K. And then on all the social medias, we're just at the cooler kegcom and that's cooler with a C and keg with a K. And then on all the social medias, we're just at the cooler keg. So, whether it's Facebook, instagram, tik, tok, you know, whatever their preference.

Speaker 2: 13:11

And they can link to all those social medias from your website too. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3: 13:16

But yeah, I mean just to address one thing you were just saying with the outdoor setup. It is so awesome for that, but it also adds a fun twist because it's so portable. You know, because like everybody knows somebody who has a kegerator and they're like oh yeah you know I haven't used it in six months.

Speaker 3: 13:31

I've got half a keg of bad beer in there and it's, you know, unplugged. You know it's like hasn't left the basement in 10 years since they first put it in there. Whereas this, to have a kegerator in your basement, you can also take it to your back porch, you can also take it to your garage, to the lake, the beach. It gives you that option, but also the flexibility to take a tailgating to do anything you want with it.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Well, that brings up another issue I hadn't thought about until just now. If you fill it totally full, what's the weight with all that liquid in it?

Speaker 3: 14:01

So the weight is 75 pounds. It weight with all that liquid in it. So the weight is 75 pounds. Okay, it's the identical. If you have a picnic cooler full of ice and beer, your cans, it's the weight of the water. Okay, like we can't change that, so like, yeah, it's the exact same way. If you've got a picnic cooler full of, you know, ice and cans and I got the cooler keg, it's the same.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Okay, well, I just realized too that there was something that you and I were speaking about earlier, kind of a project going on with Brian Cobb out there, and he's the chief innovation officer at CVG, and so he's into his robots. I've met him and I kind of know him just through other people, but explain to me what that project is with Brian.

Speaker 3: 14:46

Oh, absolutely Fantastic guy.

Speaker 3: 14:48

So I was lucky enough to see him speak at an event in Cincinnati and I met someone on his team, and they connected us with a robot company called Autonomy, and they worked with CBG to bring a delivery robot to the airport, and so currently there's a robot at CVG that will like deliver food to your gate or something to that degree, and so their team connected, you know, put us in contact with one another, and so we ended up taking our cooler keg and putting it on the back of the robot to create a prototype that we actually took to CES in Las Vegas this year, with a robot to create a prototype that we actually took to CES in Las Vegas this year, and so it's a draft beverage delivery vending machine, so to speak.

Speaker 3: 15:30

So, basically, this robot could roll around, whether it's the airport, stadiums, trade shows, expos, amusement parks think of like walking around Kings Island and all of a sudden there's a robot there. You can stop it. Or hotels yeah, pay for a drink and it allows you to dispense a set volume. Yeah, you know. So it has a lot of fun applications. We'll see where that goes, though.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean, the possibilities are sort of limitless, really Okay, but you've got to start where you start and you've come a long way and it's a really cool product. Before we go, something else that came to mind is all right, so you've used this product. It involves hoses and et cetera, et cetera. Taste is tied to cleanliness, health is tied to cleanliness. How do you clean the system? Is it easy to clean? What's that look like?

Speaker 3: 16:20

So it's very easy to clean. So the kegs have wide mouth openings, it's very easy to take the lid off and they're all stainless steel. So you rinse them out and then basically what I tell people is if you can serve a beer, if you can serve a cocktail, you can serve cleaning supplies. So you just fill the kegs with water and sanitizer and you run that through the lines and that rinses everything out, sanitizes it. So basically, if you can serve a drink, you can serve, you can clean it. It's just super simple.

Speaker 2: 16:46

So all of those ancillary products that support the main product, that's all available on your website as well.

Speaker 3: 16:51

Correct, correct. So we have like cleaning kits, we have extra CO2. So the whole thing runs off one small disposable cartridge of CO2. So you're never having to go get a big canister refilled somewhere, and the cartridges are not proprietary. We do sell them on our website and we hope everyone supports local, but they're also available on Amazon and from home brew stores, places like that.

Speaker 2: 17:12

So yeah, Well, support local. That's what we're all about. That's why you and I are talking here today.

Speaker 3: 17:19

I'll say and we match their prices and we do free shipping.

Speaker 2: 17:21

So All right. Well, that's good to know too. So, for anyone who's listening again, you know we want to make sure you know where to go to learn more about the cooler keg, and that is pretty simple Thecoolerkegcom. And that's where you begin your journey into learning about all the cool possibilities, how you can be one of the coolest guys on your block with the cooler keg on your back patio this summer Exactly, or out on the lake or river or wherever.

Speaker 3: 17:48

Exactly Whether you're doing some bangles tailgating or, you know, yeah, right In the boat down to Lake Cumberland.

Speaker 2: 17:54

The possibilities are truly endless, Yep. Well, I enjoyed talking to you today and I've enjoyed learning about your product along the way leading up to this conversation. I encourage everybody to go to the cooler keg dot com, learn more and then just kind of start their own individual journey with your product. And you guys have worked hard on this and you deserve everything you have coming to you. So we'll check in again some other time and you and I have not met in person, but something tells me that when we do, we'll be drinking out of a cooler keg. Yeah, 100%, All right, brother. Well, it's been nice talking to you. With that we'll end it. I'll just tell everybody who's listening. Until next time, all of you, please be good to your neighbor. We'll see you later.