Get ready to untap the secrets of the booming craft beer industry with our guest, Kevin Abbott from Barrel of Monks Brewing in Boca Raton. With a background rooted in the wine industry, Kevin effortlessly transitioned into the exciting world of craft beer and has insights to share. Learn how he puts a unique twist on home brewing using an unassuming turkey fryer, and debunk some common myths in the process. Did you know ales and lagers, while appearing to be polar opposites, share more than you'd think? - all IPAs are actually ales.
But there's more to Kevin's story than just beer brewing. Kevin opens up about the challenges and rewards of marketing craft beer directly to beer buyers at local craft beer spots and retail outlets. Find out how a small but determined team manages to distribute different beer brands throughout Florida, and experience the thrill that comes from seeing their beer being enjoyed in various establishments.
A highlight of this episode is undoubtedly the heartwarming tale of Wizard in Pink, a raspberry white ale, crafted annually in October, in support of the American Cancer Society. Kevin shares how this seven-year-long initiative brings a ray of hope in the ongoing battle against breast cancer. So, tune in for a conversation that strikes the perfect balance between passion, knowledge, and social responsibility.
Visit: www.barrelofmonks.com Call: 561-510-1253
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Get ready to untap the secrets of the booming craft beer industry with our guest, Kevin Abbott from Barrel of Monks Brewing in Boca Raton. With a background rooted in the wine industry, Kevin effortlessly transitioned into the exciting world of craft beer and has insights to share. Learn how he puts a unique twist on home brewing using an unassuming turkey fryer, and debunk some common myths in the process. Did you know ales and lagers, while appearing to be polar opposites, share more than you'd think? - all IPAs are actually ales.
But there's more to Kevin's story than just beer brewing. Kevin opens up about the challenges and rewards of marketing craft beer directly to beer buyers at local craft beer spots and retail outlets. Find out how a small but determined team manages to distribute different beer brands throughout Florida, and experience the thrill that comes from seeing their beer being enjoyed in various establishments.
A highlight of this episode is undoubtedly the heartwarming tale of Wizard in Pink, a raspberry white ale, crafted annually in October, in support of the American Cancer Society. Kevin shares how this seven-year-long initiative brings a ray of hope in the ongoing battle against breast cancer. So, tune in for a conversation that strikes the perfect balance between passion, knowledge, and social responsibility.
Visit: www.barrelofmonks.com Call: 561-510-1253
Local Living is a community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland. Are You A Local Business, Resident, Leader or Non-Profit? If so, we would love to have you on the podcast! Go to www.locallivingpodcast.com for all of the info.
Speaker 1:
Welcome, welcome everyone, to Local Living. I'm David Conway, your host for this community podcast for Palm Beach to Parkland, and today we are going to tap into, if you'll pardon the expression, one of the hottest industries in the United States. Our guest today Kevin Abbott with Barrel of Monks Brewery. Kevin, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:
It's an honor and a privilege to be here with you.
Speaker 1:
Great to have you. I was looking forward to this one, so why don't you start out by telling our listeners a little bit more about Barrel of Monks?
Speaker 2:
Barrel of Monks Brewing has been around for almost nine years. We're in Boca Raton, florida, and we produce beer. We sell beer. We distribute beer throughout the entire state and also into other states as well. The most important thing for the locals is to know that you can not only go to your local public stores and target Total One and more whole food, fresh market all the usual suspects to find our beers, but you can also visit our tap room in Boca Raton. It's just like any other bar. You can walk in, you can order a beer, you can get some food from an amazing food truck that we have a partner of, so you can come see us and you can pick us up in many different places. So we have kind of two facets of our business.
Speaker 1:
So I'm sure I'm not alone here, but this is one of those industries, one of those businesses that guys sit around and gals and dream and think, oh, I'd love to go into that. How did you get into the industry? Tell us a little bit more about your background.
Speaker 2:
One funny thing about that is that I always joke that you cannot walk into a craft beer bar and throw a rock without hitting someone that's opening a brewery tomorrow, so it's definitely a major thing. The brewing industry has exploded here in Florida in the last 10 years. I mean, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of breweries, and I was no different. I was a craft beer. I love craft beer, I love to drink craft beer, but I originally got started in the wine industry.
Speaker 2:
I worked as a sommelier or a wine steward from a very nice restaurant in Delray Beach and I got turned on to craft beer by an employee, someone that I was training on our wine list, and he explained to me that beer wasn't as a complex of beverage as wine, which I thought was nuts, crazy and insane until he started breaking it down for me and explaining the complexity of hops and the variety of hops and the complexity of barley and the variety of barley and all the different ingredients and spices you can use, and it blew my mind and I realized that I could become a home brewer.
Speaker 2:
I could get the kits that you buy online and I could get a turkey fryer and do it in my garage and the passion grew from there. I ended up getting a job as the original head brewer of Funky Buddha Brewing, which is one of the biggest breweries not only in the state but a massive brewery throughout the country. I was the original brewer there before opening up my own thing with some partners and friends at Barrel Amonk. So I got into the beer industry through the wine industry in a lot of ways, because I couldn't make good wine in South Florida but I could make kick-ass beer. I don't know if I can say ass, by the way, but you can, I just did.
Speaker 1:
PG-13 here, wonderful. So you said turkey fryer. I've got to ask you. You said turkey fryer in the garage. Just please tell me a little. I've never heard of that. What's up with the turkey fryer?
Speaker 2:
Oh, so turkey fryer? It's just a big pot that has an independent burner, right? So when you are home brewing, one of the main things you have to do is you have to boil your water sugar water and that's when you add your hops and your spices and things of that nature. One of the best things to do if you're a home brewer is get a turkey fryer, because you have that independent burner that you can put outside. You can put it in the garage, basically, so you don't make a mess out of your kitchen. You can brew wonderful beer at home on the stove, but you have one or two boilovers and that sticky syrup is all over your house and your significant other is screaming at you, and that's basically that. Doing it out in the yard is a much better option.
Speaker 1:
So I know you have a lot of enthusiasts in your business. People come in. They probably study brewing beer and think they know a lot, and I'm sure some of them do. Can you tell us, though, some myths, some misconceptions that people may have about brewing in general or your industry?
Speaker 2:
So I'm guessing this podcast is seven hours long, right, because that's how much time I would need to cover all the misconceptions. Here's a couple of them. One you work in the beer industry. You must be drunk all the time. Strangely enough, we drink very rarely while we're on the clock. It's just like any other business. For a lot of the time we're just making a widget, we're just making a thing, we're a manufacturing plant, so you got to be on your toes and you certainly aren't sipping beer all day. It is nice to get the fruits of your labor and be able to share it with other people and sit down at the bar and have a pint, but that's kind of where that starts and stops.
Speaker 2:
One that I love and this is talking about, like flavor and styles. Loggers and ales are the two categories of what all beers fall under the category of logger or ale, and that's all about the yeast that's used in producing the beer, and then from there you branch out into all these different styles. But I will oftentimes have people say no, I don't like ales, I like IPAs. Well, india Pale Ale it's an IPA as an ale. It's an IPA as an ale, just like a stout as an ale, just like a Guinness would say would be an ale. So there's a lot of misconceptions because these words are thrown around and we see them used for marketing but we don't understand that they actually have a basis in the production of something Same thing. I don't like loggers. Well, what are you drinking there? I'm drinking a Budweiser. That's a logger. So you see, a lot of that as far as people coming up to me and telling me the things they like or they don't like, when they don't realize that they're kind of talking about the same thing.
Speaker 1:
So when you said you don't drink a lot, I did notice that you qualified it with while on the clock, so I'm sure you like to enjoy a craft beer or other spirits in your free time. What else do you like to do for fun when you're not working?
Speaker 2:
Well, right now my son has just started. I have a five-year-old son. My son has just gotten into baseball and so we are going out pretty much every day and hitting the ball around and throwing the ball around. I said he's going to be starting his first season here pretty soon, so I may end up actually being a coach, so that'll be a lot of fun. I'm a big sports fan. I'm a big baseball fan. I followed the Detroit Tigers pretty passionately. I'm from Detroit, michigan originally, so that would probably be my main hobby and really running this business full-time. Being a full-time dad and a husband to my wife really takes up pretty much all the time I have. Unfortunately, people will say, oh, you should come visit my brewery or we should go get together and do this, and I have very, very little time for that. I'll mention one other thing. I love the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I follow pretty much all the movies and TV shows around there.
Speaker 1:
A nine-year run. You've had over there Very successful run. Congratulations on that. Can you tell the listeners maybe something that you experienced, some challenges you had that made you stronger or could have even contributed to your success?
Speaker 2:
I think in this industry because it is really so young. In Florida the craft beer industry really popped off in the 80s but it didn't really start picking up steam until the 2000s. So if you look at other areas of the country California, the Northeast Michigan craft beers have been around for a long time. Everyone knows the game, but in Florida, locally brewed craft beer was an anomaly up until 2009, 2010. It just didn't happen. So we have a very undereducated population that is more passionate about macro brands, the big distributed brands and even craft brands from other places in the country. So we've had to really adapt and educate. That's been our entire business.
Speaker 2:
We thought we would open up a Belgian inspired brewery and, just for a quick background on that, trappist monks in Belgium have been brewing beers for centuries.
Speaker 2:
They're some of the greatest, most well reviewed, most classic beers of all time and we brew beer in this style.
Speaker 2:
And we thought, because we were brewing this classic style and that they were so well received and so complex and interesting that they were just gonna beat our door down, we're gonna have this beer available and everyone's just gonna find it and we're gonna be wildly successful. And it turned out that we had to do a lot of education. We had to do a lot of going to people, doing social media posts, doing beer dinners, doing events to tell people what we were, because nobody knew. I mean, I always say is that maybe two people out of a hundred and you walk into a room really have any concept of the kind of beer we do, or even craft beer in general? And it doesn't seem that way when you see the commercials and you see all these beers on draft everywhere. But visibility and education are struggles for all of us in the industry and we have had to adapt and be aggressive in those ways, in ways we didn't think we would have to, and if we hadn't done that, I don't think we would have survived as long as we did.
Speaker 1:
So your beers are in stores right in South Florida, but they can also come in and enjoy the tap room. Can you tell us how do you navigate between the two and how do they affect each other, as far as working with the retail end of it but also with the hospitality end?
Speaker 2:
Well, we really run two different businesses and I get contacted a lot. You know, when you're looking at marketing and things of that nature, that we really have to segment our business right when my beer is available in, you know, 300 to 400 bars and restaurants. It's available in hundreds of retail outlets all over the state, especially more concentrated locally, and for that I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
Now, when they see your beer in a restaurant, is it branded with the barrel of monks brand or the name of the actual beer itself, or both?
Speaker 2:
If the beer bar knows what they're doing, it's both right. So if you have a brewery barrel of monks brewing, waypoint IPA right.
Speaker 2:
There are some restaurants that don't have a great understanding of craft beer and they might just list it as Waypoint IPA. They might just list it as barrel of monks IPA. That's one of the complexities. Right Once that beer leaves your docks and goes to your distribution company, you're kind of hands off in a lot of ways. Now we have a sales rep out in the market who's working directly with locations retail on-premise off-premise, which would be like bars and restaurants, versus on off-premise, which is retail outlets, grocery stores and we work with them and we sell into them. But we really have a limited amount of things that we can do once that beers in their hands.
Speaker 2:
So right now, here we have your Finding avenues.
Speaker 2:
There is one business, whereas driving people to actually get in their cars, come to our tap room, engage with us for our specialty events, our anniversary parties, our specialty food pairings, things of that nature, is really going directly to people. So I'm selling directly to people and trying to convince them to give me some of their time and try me out, as opposed to one of these 100 other breweries and thousands of other bars, because we're in the same boat that we're all in. And then, on the other side of things, I'm going directly to a beer buyer at the local craft beer spot or the local retail and saying you've got to have barrel amongst here because it's popular, because it sells well in other places, because it's a higher quality product than you're going to get elsewhere, or because I'm going to support you more. And I've just described 10 different things we have to do, and we have to do that with a staff of about 10 people and we have to do that throughout the entire state of Florida with multiple brands, and it's really complex.
Speaker 1:
Now a lot of pride, obviously, seeing your brand out there in different establishments. More fun though, the tap room part. Do you enjoy that part, or really you get the thrill from both sides?
Speaker 2:
You know I have been doing this for now almost 15 years. So I have to admit, as much as I love seeing my beer on shelves not just in Florida but in other states or seeing reviews happen in Europe, some of that cachet it's reduced as my pride and my kind of giddiness of that aspect it doesn't go away completely. I really like seeing beers away from our tap room because I don't see my. I see my tap room every day. It becomes a little bit like the wallpaper and I'm not really in the tap room when business is operating.
Speaker 2:
I keep bankers hours right. Our tap room opens at 4 PM. I'm rarely here at that time so maybe if I was around more people drinking my beer more often it would be a little bit different. But I still really like seeing the winds of having our beer available in more and more places, exposing more people, Because when you come here, you're coming here for me, you're coming here for barrel of monks. When I get somebody to try our beer in a different spot when they didn't seek you out, that's the chance of conversion and giving people something they didn't expect and that's really exciting for me.
Speaker 1:
So tell us one thing you'd like the listeners to know a little bit more about barrel of monks brewery. Is there something that you really want them to know or a message that you want to get out there?
Speaker 2:
I think I'd want people to understand that craft beer is a complex beverage. It is age worthy. I mean we have bottles, we have a vintage beer list and we have seven-year-old bottles of beer on that list that you can walk into. You can try the exchange of things you can order. I will open for you. I know my bartenders will open for you and pour and have you try the way a beer ages and increases in complexity and changes over time, just like a fine bottle of wine would.
Speaker 2:
Beer also pairs extremely well with food. Coming from the wine world and doing beer I'm sorry, excuse me wine dinners, I focus a lot on beer and food pairings and because beer is so complex and there's different ingredients you can use, it can pair as well or better than wine when it comes to food. So you know, just for beer in general, I want people to look at beer as less of like the thing you drink next to the barbecue when it's hot on the 4th of July, which is fine, and there's plenty of beers that are great for that. But I want people to think about beer and our beer specifically as stuff that's built around an occasion, around bringing beer to share with friends and contemplation and talking about it and really understanding. As much as we love whiskies and we love wines and we love champagne, those seem to be events when we drink those, and beer seems to sometimes kind of be lacking in that. I'd love to change people's perceptions about that.
Speaker 1:
So where are you located? How can people find you?
Speaker 2:
So we are in Boca Bartone. We are on Roger's Circle, which is in the Clipmore and Congress area in Boca, and we are open seven days a week. We'll open at 4 pm on weekdays, noon on weekends. You can walk in, you can go to barrelamunkscom find all this information, by the way or just type it into Google and you can come in order a beer. We do have some limited wines available and we, like I said, we've got a great food truck out front so you can come visit us that way.
Speaker 2:
Or you can really walk into any total wine and more Whole Foods, many Publix, many Target locations you can walk into I mean, I can't name nearly as many bars and restaurants as I could to say, well, you can find us. And, by the way, if you like our beers and you can't find them in your spot, you can always go to that bartender or go to that manager or go to that retail location and say, hey, listen, this is my favorite beer. You can, I'd like you to carry it, and the customer has great sway in that. And we've gotten into dozens of locations because people have found our beer, enjoyed them and then asked to bar to carry it, and it's a wonderful thing as well.
Speaker 1:
So you mentioned events, beer and food pairings. Is there a mailing list? Can they go on your website and be added to the mailing list? How does that work?
Speaker 2:
That's exactly how you can do it. You can sign up either for a mailing list, you can sign up for text messages, for information. You can find all this information. You go to our social media I mean, if you look Barrel Amongst Up, we're the only one that really comes up so you can find our Instagram, you can find our Facebook and, yes, you can follow us so you can see all the information that we have coming on. And you can also sign up to be notified about that as well. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we do have a coming up.
Speaker 2:
We have our Wizard in Pink. Every October we do a beer called Wizard in Pink, which is a raspberry white ale, and we do this and the proceeds support the American Cancer Society and specifically making strides against breast cancer. And we do this primarily because two of my partners are radiologists by trade and work a lot with the breast cancer community, and this is something we've now done for seven years. It's a patch and project for us. It's something we do every year. So if you see Wizard in Pink, it's a beautiful beer. It's a fruity, raspberry beer with a nice pink hue and a gorgeous can, if you see that out there in the market, know that when you're picking that beer up or you come into Barrel Amongst and try that beer, you're supporting a good cause. And this is a cause where the proceeds go to making strides. And making strides is not a marketing company. Making strides gives money for research directly to patients, for travel. I mean it's one of the better organizations you can find when it comes to servicing that community.
Speaker 1:
Kevin, you've been fantastic. This has been really, really great. Thanks for joining us today. My absolute pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, once again David Conway, your host for Local Living, Thanks for listening and we look forward to having you back real soon. Routes
