Whiskey & Wisdom

From Farm to Glass: The Importance of Local Ingredients in Brewing w/ Aaron Goss

May 31, 2023 Whiskey & Wisdom
Whiskey & Wisdom
From Farm to Glass: The Importance of Local Ingredients in Brewing w/ Aaron Goss
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Show Notes Transcript

On this episode of the Whiskey & Wisdom podcast, co-hosts Tyler Yaw and Chris Kellum are joined by Aaron Goss, the owner and founder of Carolina Malt House. First, we discuss Aaron's story of graduating college at 16, becoming a computer programmer, going back to school to become an attorney then finally to where this story begins, as the owner of Carolina Malt House. We discuss the malting process, the importance of locally sourced ingredients, and sustainability. 

This week we are sippin' on Sneaky Goose from Wilmington Brewing Company

Instagram: @carolinamalthouse 
#spreadthemalt

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tyler:

Welcome back everybody to the Whiskey and Wisdom Podcast. This is your co-host, Tyler Y'all. And I am here with Chris Kellum and our special guest

aaron:

for this evening is Aaron GOs from Carolina Malthouse. Appreciate it so much for stopping by today. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having me down.

chris:

I'm so excited. I have, I have like six questions

tyler:

already. Chris came in and he goes, I'm so excited. I have so many questions. And I was like, oh, this is perfect Then. So today instead of whiskey, we are actually going to be drinking Sneaky Goose from Wilmington Brewing Company, which actually has some of your

aaron:

malt in it, right? Right, right. And I, I told you guys, I actually kind of meant to bring a different beer. Mm-hmm. That was a little more malt forward. This one is a West Coast ipa, so Right. Very hoppy. But the one that had that was more malt forward with our malt in it sold out too quickly. So, couldn't get my hands on any. That's a very good problem to have then. Yes. Yep. Yep. But but this one's still good. Yeah. Got our malt in it, but just a little more hop forward. A little harder to taste the malt coming through. Yeah, that's perfect. Let's try it

chris:

here. Cheers. Mm-hmm.

tyler:

Cheers.

chris:

I don't wanna splash.

tyler:

That's pretty good beer. It is very

aaron:

hoppy. Yeah. So this is sneaky goose from Wilmington Brewing. Ay, little sneaky

tyler:

goose. West Coast style. Imperial. I p a

aaron:

goose. Yeah. I, I wish John had been there. I would've asked him why he named it sneaky goose, right. Yeah. We'll

tyler:

have to bring him on some time then and find out the, the story behind that. The origins.

chris:

Yeah. The origin story. I always forget to ask those questions. For those who actually care about our alcohol that we drink this one is, like you said, from Wilmington Brewing Company. It's very interesting cuz it's a double ipa. It also has the fancy name of a West Coast style Imperial ipa. So Flavor wise is a little bit different. It is 9.4% that's pretty high for a beer,

tyler:

just like a standard West Coast ipa.

chris:

And it's, I mean, it's just a traditional ipa. I think you'd like it. I mean it's not too, it's not heavy. No, it's not super light. Like it's right in between. It'd be a good beer for, to me, I would drink it probably like in that weird summertime when it gets warmer, but it's not like hot out. Yeah. Or like a summer night.

tyler:

Oh yeah. Finally starting to get Chris's like seasonal type of drinking style down. Cuz there's certain things that he's only going to drink during certain times of the year,

chris:

so. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It allows me to lengthen the time that I have this alcohol. That's true. Yep.

aaron:

Yep. Go for like the porters and stouts more in the wintertime. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Springtime, fall beer and summertime. Maybe you go for like a nice light beer. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

tyler:

And so I do have to say we do appreciate you coming out here meeting us, the person, cuz you did drive all the way in from,

aaron:

Well, Cleveland, North Carolina. Cleveland, North Carolina. Okay. Which, if you don't know where that is, it's between Salisbury and Statesville. Yeah. So I grew up in Salisbury built the mall house near where I grew up. Okay. And then now I live closer to Statesville. Okay. Yeah. Nice area. Real pretty salsbury.

chris:

Did you guys, did you know we had a Cleveland?

tyler:

Not until I met Aaron a couple weeks ago. Oh, okay.

chris:

I was, I was like Cleveland

aaron:

too. Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean, I'm not surprised You haven't heard of it. Yeah, it's a small town, but we're putting it on the map. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Us and and then they have like a, well it used to be a, a Freightliner truck manufacturer. I think now it's owned by Daimler Chrysler. Oh, okay. Yeah. Really big plant there for making big highway trucks. Oh, wow. Good to know.

tyler:

So how'd you get into the malt

aaron:

business? Well, so it goes back to law school. Okay. When, when my time was worth nothing. And so I started brewing beer. Mm-hmm. And progressed from kit beer to buying malt from the malt, from the, the home brew store. Right. And then took the additional step cuz I'm, I'm from Salisbury, which is I mean, Cleveland is kind of, right in the middle of North Carolina's grain belt. Right. But Salisbury's right there too. So, I mean, I, I grew up with a bunch of kids whose dads were small grains farmers. Oh, wow. And so I, I took that additional step of getting some barley, malting it at home making beer from that. And and it was really good. The, the, not only does the freshness matter, but the, like, if you, if you're familiar with wine, they have this concept of terroir. Mm-hmm. But the same thing actually applies to beer. There's a really interesting study done by Miller Hz back in 78 79 that kind of really confirmed that. But The Carolinas do have just unique growing conditions that creates a kind of a unique flavor in the beer. So, yeah, not just the freshness and the, the attention to the process that we can give it, but but the terroir really made for some good beer. So, I got married in 2013 made all the beer for my wedding. It was, Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. Nine kegs of beer and and it was all gone at the end of the wedding weekend. Nice. And I don't know if either of you have ever gotten married, is he? Yeah, both all of us. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, when you get married you notice that like the price is four times what it would be like. You're renting a tent for your company event, the price is X, you get married, it's x times four. So yeah. Anyway, it was cheaper for me, cheaper than renting glassware to buy a whole pallet of pint glasses from China. So I, I got my import license, brought in a whole pallet of pint glasses. It was free to put a logo on'em. Oh, that's awesome. So at my wedding I had people drinking out of these go brewing company, pint glasses and and, and really enjoying this locally grown beer. And it was actually my, my friend's mom came up to my mom and she said, Hey, is, is Erin thinking I'm starting a brewery? Cuz if, so this is really good beer and I want to invest. And Oh wow. So I got to talk to her and, and her son later. Yeah. About the idea. And I, and I, I kind of explained, well, it's maybe not so much the, the brewing process as the quality of the ingredients that made it good beer. Mm-hmm. And I explained what I really wanted to do was open a malting operation so that other breweries could make locally grown beer. Right. And but yeah, her, her son actually ended up being my business partner in starting the thing. Oh, wow. Nice. Yeah. I've, I've plowed in a bunch of my savings from practicing law. Yeah. And got a couple more people on board and, and started building the malt house, so That's really neat.

tyler:

So you said that you were malting the barley. So what is the malting process?

aaron:

So, to, to make it very simple, and this is something that people have been doing since at least 2,500 bc Oh. You hydrate the barley, so get it wet. Mm-hmm. And then let it sit. So let it germinate. And then you dry it out. So it's, it's ready to go into beer. Very early beer makers, it seems like they probably skipped the drying it out phase, and then they, they just kind of immediately went into the mashing phase. Oh, okay. But but yeah, modern malting, there's that, that kiln step, which makes it taste better. And then also makes it shelf stable. So you can have one malt house serving a large geographical area. Mm-hmm. And and you've got this relatively shelf stable product that's ready to be made into beer at. Oh, wow. So nice. Okay. But

chris:

yeah, so I'm gonna, I like to go backwards to go forwards. Oh, sure. Law school. Where'd

aaron:

you go to school at? So for law school I went to Wake Forest University. Okay. Yeah. But they had a great all MBA program. So, so just

tyler:

because randomly you told me a little part of this story, when did you graduate

aaron:

originally? Age wise, so you Well, I, I never graduated high school. Right. And then I I, I did graduate from college but I was 16 years old at the time, so, so I

tyler:

knew Chris was mine. Gonna get It's blown.

aaron:

You're smart, smart. Well, I, I, I test well. Oh

chris:

yeah. So you skipped high school

aaron:

for the most part. Yep. Yeah, I my parents did have me go back for like one semester after college just to see what it was like. So, but, but I didn't graduate, so. Okay. And that never did. And that, it was really funny when I, so after I graduated in law school, they have like this bar interview. Mm-hmm. Right. And you sit in a room with a couple of attorneys and I went in the room and they said, well, you know, we. We found a mistake on your bar application. You, you forgot to write down your high school. You know, you're not gonna be sloppy with paperwork like this when you're an attorney. That's actually not a mistake, sir. That's excuse me. So I, I just got to spend 10 minutes in there, kind of. Yeah. Wow. What was that like? And I, so yeah. I just got to tell some stories from being 12 years old in college. That's pretty

tyler:

cool. So how'd that process look like getting into college without finishing high school?

aaron:

Well, so I, I went to public school mm-hmm. First through sixth grade. And and then in sixth grade I was k just kind of had this private war with my English teacher. Like, I corrected her one time at the start of the year, and then she just never got over it. Yeah. And I mean, it so, so many things. Like I, I won the spelling bee and mm-hmm. And she was like, I bet you studied that word list I gave you to win the spelling. I said, well, Actually, I, I think this class has been a waste of my time and my mother agrees got sent to the principal's office. But the, the nice thing about that it, my mom let me homeschool the next year. Okay. Okay. And and I was so grateful to be outta school that I got through a whole high school curriculum worth of textbooks by December. Oh my goodness. And and then in North Carolina, they have you take the s a t mm-hmm. In seventh grade just to kind of see how you do. And so that would've been like my seventh grade year. Right. And I took it and it did really well on it close to the, close to the maximum score you could get at the time. Wow. And and then it started out as just taking like some enrichment courses at the college. Right. Cause I, I think mom was kind of thinking like, well, you know, sometimes kids in high school will take like college level courses, like as an enrichment. Yeah. So she talked to the local college, they let me come in for, for that. So I, I took like 12 hours the first semester. Mm-hmm. And then, I think the next year I was up to taking like 26 hours a semester. Oh, wow. And I, I just took courses on everything they had. I was, I was curious. Yeah. So, I mean, and after three and a half years I just happened to have enough credits in computer science for a major, so I went ahead and walked. That's cool. Yeah. So you went

tyler:

from computer science into law then?

aaron:

Yeah, so I, I, I was a computer programmer for eight years. Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. Started out working for foodline Grocery Store. Okay. Made a, like a produce quoting application. Worked on their first website, like the store locator, and made this really. I don't think it ever made it on the website, but I made this really fun little game where you controlled a bagger and you could like move him side to side along the bottom of the screen. Like gallica. Yeah. And you would have to catch falling groceries. And so, you know, like the candy bar was worth five points. The broccoli was worth like 50. Oh, of course. And then if you got the M MVP card, that was 500, you know, that was like winning the lot. But anyway, yeah. But I, yeah, I did, I did that for a couple of years kind of started my own little computer repair business. Ended up working for a company in Raleigh that made a integrated development environment for COBAL PL one, like, like some, some of the older languages. Okay. They were, they were helping people get ready for Y2K and then Gotcha. They, so that's kinda how they got their foot in the door. And then I worked with'em after the Y2K changeover to just helping refine the product. And then so, yeah, did that for a little while. And then when I was the right age to go to graduate school, I took the. Lsat, the gma, the mcat, and I did the best on the LSAT and the gmat, you know? Geez. Yeah. And, and Wake Forest seemed like a good place to go,

chris:

right when I was the age that I could apply to grad, right. I've already done a whole life, go do something different.

aaron:

So, but yeah, then, then I practiced law for five years after that, and then Okay. And then that, that was when the, the malt thing really started to seem like a good idea. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

tyler:

So when you were kind of practicing law, then, were you just kind of getting bored with the law part and you were like, you know what, this would be so much more fun to go into malt, because it's kind of a weird kind of transition, I guess you could say. Right.

aaron:

Well, I, I got my MBA at the same time as my law degree. Okay. So I kind of had an idea that I want to get into business. Business. You know, the practicing law was really good for paying off law school. That's what they said. Good point. But but yeah, there, it was kind of a, Kind of two things happening at once. So my, my big cases when I was an attorney were like class action cases. Oh, okay. Payday lending is illegal in North Carolina. Yeah. But a bunch of people continued making payday loans even after it became illegal. Mm-hmm. So, oh, wow. Class action law. Very good way to handle that. But then they Supreme Court decision came down that kind of knocked out that branch of practice. Right. And then at the same time it, the, the, like I say, the malting thing really seemed like a good idea. Yeah. I started after I got that positive feedback, I started looking into it a little bit more closely. I saw there were, I think at the time there were 118 breweries in the state. Mm-hmm. And 54 permits pending, something like that. Mm-hmm. Wow. And then I, I looked at the website again, like just, just maybe a month later, and it was already up to 127 breweries and like 70 permits pending. And I thought, wow, you know, a bunch of people are really getting into this now. So now we have over 300 breweries in North Carolina. And yeah, it's, it's just really been exciting to be a part of it. Yeah. So

tyler:

from what I understand too then, right, in the malting world, there is pretty much like just one main place that the overwhelming majority of beers get their malt from. Is that, is that right?

aaron:

Well, so they're European malting operations. Mm-hmm. So the UK has I mean, you know, six to eight large malting operations. Germany has Wireman malt and a few others. And then in the us when Prohibition knocked out the beer industry, it also knocked out the malt industry. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, my history could be wrong, but I, I'm pretty sure that pre-prohibition, there were like 15 malt houses in North Carolina and prohibition knocked that out. And then after prohibition, when everything was rebuilding it was also kind of that industrialization era. Mm-hmm. And so, like, if you wanted to rebuild beer in the US it was like, okay, where do we go to do this big and right. And so it's like, okay, well, north Midwestern green fields mm-hmm. We can grow all the barley we could possibly need up there. And so they go there, they build the malt houses and the breweries there. And and that's kind of the state of beer for the next 60, 70 years. Wow. Until you see this, the, the, you see the craft breweries popping up mm-hmm. And kind of following after that, the craft malt houses are coming in. That's really neat.

tyler:

What makes that kind of Salisbury area perfect for barley?

aaron:

Well, a lot of factors. One, one big one is just the timing of rainfall. Okay. One nice thing we have going for us is just the prevailing wind pattern combined with Lake Norman. Okay. Creates kind of this Just sheltered area where we, we don't get rain when we don't want rain. We do get rain when we do want rain. Hmm. Nice. And that it makes for some really good small grains. Yeah. So

tyler:

definitely not the coast then where we just get rain all of the time.

aaron:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I've, I've had a couple of farmers out this way try to grow malting barley for us. Mm-hmm. And I've had a couple of'em where it, who, who don't seem to be able to hit the quality, but recently we've been working with a, a guy named Tommy Wheeler out this way, a Tidewater grain, and he, whatever, whatever he's doing, he seems to have it figured out. Oh, he's given us some really great quality from Yeah. From the coastal plains.

chris:

So you're talking about something that hits your quality standards, and I'm assuming you guys have like higher standards than just like anything coming in. Oh yeah. What is the flavor difference

aaron:

though? Well, the flavor difference it, it's a little bit tough to put your finger on. Yeah. It's like, trying to explain to somebody the difference between fresh bread and wonder Bread. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, it's, you know, how do you explain that? It's just, well, right. When you taste it, just go taste some Yeah. And try it out. But but the flavor difference, I, I would say for our product is, is twofold. So that not only is there the freshness that comes from being local but also there is that, that notion of terroir, which is just the, the slightly different soil composition, the, the soil microbe population the rainfall, the, the hours of sunshine, just all, all of that goes into kind of that the French concept of terroir that's been applied to wine for years and years. But same thing applies to barley. Hmm. Nice. Neat. So, go ahead. No, I, well, yeah, I was just gonna, I talk a little bit more about that, that Miller Cos study. Yeah, yeah. I, yeah. Back in 78 and 79 Miller Coors did this big study. They took seven different growing areas. Mm-hmm. And all of this was just growing areas around that, like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado area. Oh, okay. But they grew the same variety of barley in those areas and then selected for like they, they're roughly eight standard quality checks you do on inbound barley. Mm-hmm. And so they, they check for barley that was similar in plump, it's protein level, things like that to just try to get a, try to get as homogenous a sample from those disparate growing areas as they could kept the growing areas segregated, made beer according to the same brewing schedule, and then had their drinkability panel taste the different sin drinkability. Mm-hmm. And, and rate it. So 1978, they do this, they come up and we'll just say that these eight growing areas were ranked. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Okay. Yeah, same thing. The next year and this year the growing areas are ranked, I think it was like A, B, C, D, F e G, something like that. Okay. So, very, very similar ranking to what they got the year before. Yeah. So, that, at least for Miller course, and I, I've tried to find this study published again, I, I wasn't able to find it online recently. Yeah. But but I, I remember reading it before and that, that was enough for Miller course to conclude that terroir is a thing. And so they, they actually dropped that lowest drinkability growing area from their, from their product Oh. Interest. Interesting. And just continued with those top, top six. Wow. But but yeah, it was just, just really cool to see that, and I mean, that, that was just seven different growing areas in that. Northern Great Plains area, right. The us. So you, you start getting malt from North Carolina, Tennessee. There are just some, some subtle differences there that fortunately for us are, are really good. So, beer made with our malt has won gold medals nationally. Just recently, Legion Brewing outta Charlotte won gold for a, a beer made with our new roasted malt and and then silver Metals globally. So yeah, we're it, it's a good flavor. It's worth trying. Yeah.

tyler:

So it sounds like there's different types of malts

aaron:

then. Yeah. So, we, we start with barley, which can be a, a fairly diverse product. Don't even on the way in. Okay. And I mean when I say that like, just things like growing conditions can yield variability in things like the water sensitivity of the grain. So that's like how long it can stay underwater without drowning. Oh, wow. And and so that might be anywhere from. Four to 18 hours straight out of the field. Hmm. So then we, we try to deal with that deal with those differences coming into the malt house and put out a homogenous homogenous product. Mm-hmm. But there are different types of malts. So, like right now we're having a west Coast ipa. Mm-hmm. And it actually says on the can, it's made with pale Malt Wheat Malt, Munich Malt and Crystal 40. Yes. So those are four different types of malt and pale and Munich would both be made from barley. Okay. And the main difference between a pale and a Munich comes in during the kiln process. Mm-hmm. So there are a couple of things you would manipulate during the kiln process to generate more color in a Munich so that Munich malt would, would you'd see that you'd see a large portion of Munich malt, like in an octoberfest or a or a Marson beer. Yeah. But Things like I mean, so Munich malt would tend to be higher in a compound called melanin which gives the beer a little bit of an amber more of an amber color. Mm-hmm. Okay. Mein is made from the reaction between an amino acid and and a reducing sugar. Hmm. So in order to generate oid in, in the, in that Munich malt we would spend some time kiln in a, in a range that's optimal for proteolytic enzyme activity to break down proteins into amino acids, and then Okay. Spend some time in a temperature range that's good for production of reducing sugars from starch. And then ramp it up to about 180 6 Fahrenheit, which is a good temperature range for the amino acid to react with reducing sugar and make that oid and compound. So it almost sounds like

tyler:

you had a degree in science in order to get into this.

aaron:

Well, it's, it's really, it's, it's been really fun to learn all the biochemistry involved, right? Yeah. But yeah. And then so also malted wheat in here. Yeah. So, I mean, we also, in addition to barley, so for your listeners who don't know barley and wheat very closely related. Mm-hmm. Like when you see grain field it, barley and wheat look very, very similar. The difference would be barley has like hairs growing on the little heads of grain that you see out in the field. Okay. But but yeah, so we can, we can malt wheat, we can malt oats. With my third production line coming online later this year, we'll be able to malt rye. Oh, wow. And then we, we've done, we've malted some corn. We've malted sorghum. So yeah. Why, why variety of things. You can run through the malting process. So if you

tyler:

do it for rye, would you be able to start making whiskey then?

aaron:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and like single malt whiskey is made with mostly malted bartley. Sure. Yeah. So you could, you can already get that from they're in Mount Pleasant. It's it's a whiskey prison down there in Mount Pleasant. Oh, okay, okay. Mount Mount Pleasant. But yeah, I have to try that. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, once we do rye, that'll be really popular, I think, with rye whiskey makers. Right. Yeah, for

chris:

sure. So do you, you had mentioned before that there's like hundreds of local breweries. Do you mainly supply the breweries or are you also supplying, like, distilleries and

aaron:

stuff? We only have a couple of distilleries that work with us. Okay. And I don't, I'm, I won't go into my speculation about why the, the whiskey industry might not care so much about local ingredients, but but yeah, we, we do have a couple that work with us. Nice. Right. Yeah. I mean,

chris:

we're always joking that I've had multiple people come to me and be like, so when are you guys gonna have your own whiskey out there? I was like, Well, first off, that takes a minimum of two years. Right? So we gotta get, we're only at one year together. We gotta find it. We gotta get all the things and source'em before we can.

aaron:

Yeah. Do that. Of course, you, you can't always do what a lot of people do and just buy some pre whiskey. Right. Slap your label on it. And yeah. That's I see you shaking your head and I'm glad to see that. Yeah. There, there's, there's a right way to do things. Yes. Right.

chris:

Yeah. That's, that's like walking into, like, I don't, there's businesses out there in general besides outside of whiskey where they're like, oh, hey, you know, I just, I bought this company and so, you know, this is what I'm selling. And I'm like, eh, but you didn't really like go through all the growing pains and you don't actually like connect to everybody. Like when people roll into a city and they're like, Hey, guess what? This is our town. And they're like, no, no, no. The people have been here.

aaron:

For years. Yeah. Yeah. Something

tyler:

to be said about having that local product, staying close, especially for these micro brews, it kind of like fits the story better. So I feel like that that's probably more of your clientele

aaron:

anyway. Right, right, right. Yeah. The, the smaller breweries. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're trying to grow and get our cost of production down and, and economies of scale, but but yeah, a lot of the smaller breweries, I mean, they're, they're, they're selling their customers on local. Mm-hmm. And so if, if the ingredients are local, it's, it's not much more local. Yes. Right.

tyler:

One of the reasons why I was interested bringing you on too, and like something you don't hear a lot from breweries when you're going there is they're not really talking about where they're getting their ingredients from. Yeah. It's like a, I know if I would sit down and probably Chris too, if they're like, Hey, we have this new beer on tap. We got this malt from right down the road, and we got this. Hops from wherever. That story is so much more interesting to me now be and at the very least, like, let

aaron:

me try it. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we just had our harvest party last week where we try to get all the, the bartenders servers to come out to the malt house and take'em out to a barley field so they can have a picture of themselves with barley. That's good. It's gonna turn into beer and it, it's just trying to get that story, get, get the people who are actually serving the beer to understand that story and tell it to the customer. Right. It's, it's something we work on a lot, but yeah. You, it really makes it better though when, when you know where it's from. Yeah. It kind

tyler:

of goes along with the, the theme that we see a lot going on now too, like the farm to table restaurants even so Oh, yeah. Like going from like a

chris:

knowing exactly like where this farm was. Yeah.

tyler:

Oh, hey, this farm to, farm to Pint class. Yes.

aaron:

That's what I was trying to think of farm to. I, I don't know if you've ever like been to one of those farm to table restaurants and you see on the menu it's like, well, We do everything we can to source local and then like you see the Cisco truck pulling out of the back. Right. It's like, well, but yeah, I, yeah, I, I mean, I feel like some of the, you know, local breweries are kind, you know, you're going there and it's like, oh, it's a, you know, yeah. Local brewery, but the malts coming from the same place is the malt that's in any other, you know, any beer that you might import. So, which is

chris:

like, it explains so much why, like, even with micro breweries, there's a lot of them where the flavor is very similar. It's like, oh, hey, I'm drinking the same thing. But sometimes you can taste the difference. Mm-hmm. Like when we travel, we, we always try something random from like a local spot. Yeah. Just for that reason. Like, can you tell the difference? Or does this guy say it's a local brewery and it just tastes like a Bud Light?

tyler:

Have you been to St. Louis?

aaron:

I've been, haven't had a beer there.

tyler:

I spent quite a bit of time in St. Louis, and you would go around to all these places and you would drink it like, oh, we have this light beer. Like, oh, okay, whatever. And we try it cause that's the only thing they have there, evidently. Mm-hmm. And you would try and like, hmm. Kind of tastes like Bud Light and you would start asking questions like, oh, who who owns this brewery? And they're like, Anheuser Busch. And it's like, ah, okay. It's all makes sense now.

aaron:

Now I see. But I mean, Budweiser tastes I would say pretty good in Colorado, like in Fort Collins, you know, it's, it's near the Greenfield, right? Yeah. And that's something I try to, you know, talk to my customers customers about is fresher is just better. I mean beer, like any, like any culinary product the better ingredients, better beer. Yeah. Right.

chris:

So talking about better ingredients and better beer, because my brain is going through all these things. Where do you store all of your stuff? Like, cuz when I think of a malt house, like the first thing I thought of was like, co-works. I'm like, oh, it can't be that big. But then you're talking about like how much grains you have and I'm like, this thing must be massive.

aaron:

Yeah. So that's a great question. And yeah, people ask like, well, yo, oh well should you just buy some malting machines? And it's like, well, no, they're too big to ship. So, the so yeah there was no grain elevator around here that was stocking malting barley because there was absolutely no demand for it. So when we built our malt house, we had to simultaneously build a grain elevator on site. Oh, wow. So we located right in the middle of the grain belt, Cleveland, Cleveland, North Carolina. Mm-hmm. And yeah, we built four large silos, each one capable of holding 34,000 bushels of barley. Wow. And so that's enough to keep us running for about a year and a half right now. Okay. And I held a meeting with local growers mm-hmm. To ask them whether they could meet the quality that we wanted to see. And it turned out they could, but, but yeah. Yeah, we, I, I think they're 64 malt houses around the country and we're at least fairly unique among them. I, I think there are only one or two others that built a grain elevator at the same time they were building their malt house. Damn that. Yeah. So even though there are these 64 craft malt houses around the country a lot of the malt houses are like, they're, they're malting locally, but the grain is still coming from wherever they can get it. Ah, gotcha. So, every year in August, we contract with local growers to fill our silos in May. So. Nice. Yeah, actually as I sit here today, I've, I've probably when I go back tomorrow, I'm, I might have my first truckloads coming in, so, oh yeah. That is awesome.

chris:

Awesome. For. Normal people who don't know anything about malt houses. What's a grain

aaron:

elevator? Well, you, you see'em sometimes when you're driving through the country. Mm-hmm. But it's like those great big rounds, silvery cylinders with cones on top off the side of the road. Okay. And then there'll be like some great big, there, there might be like a central column and there'll be pipes going down to all the different bends. Okay. And and so that central column is really like the, the thing that elevates the grain, but then you call the whole. The whole thing is a grain elevator with like, all the storage is a grain elevator. Okay. So it lifts it up and then drops it, but yeah, lifts it up. Drops in in a bin. Okay. That's, that's the basics of it. So I had

chris:

both options in my head I was like, it was either that or you built something that elevated your grain above the

aaron:

rest. But yeah, we, we, that just the process. Yes. We, we had to build custom storage though. Like, most of the on-farm grain storage that you find in this area can't keep a high germination level through the summer, so it's just too hot and humid in the summer. Oh, for sure. Germination drops. So, we, we custom built our grain bins to be able to keep, keep that germination potential high through the summer. Oh. Hmm. That was a, just another, another little thing we did to make it work in this area. Was there

tyler:

a lot of trial and error when it came to that? Or like, did you know a lot of these things were gonna pop up and you tried to hedge against them?

aaron:

It was a lot of research that fortunately paid off. Okay, good. So yeah. Very, very educated guesses that paid off. Yeah. So, but yeah, we, we had one farmer try to store some malting barley through the summer and I mean, we, so we need 99% germination to really mm-hmm. Put out the quality we want to put out. And that barley was down to 7% germination after one summer. Oh. Oh my goodness. So it's just that a lot of the, a lot of the bins in this area, or at least in our area, are the idea is just to store feed, and it doesn't matter if it pre sprouts. So, yeah. We, we just had to change our design a little bit. Yeah, makes sense. But it worked out. We've, we've we've been able to store barley through two summers and maintain quality. Oh, wow. Yeah. So how long have you been in business then? Well, Let's see. It was 2014 that I quit my law job. 2015. I got, I bought the, the grassy field where I built the place. Oh yeah. It was like November, 2015, I was able to hop on a bulldozer and start grading it out and and then it was March, 2018 that we got our first commercial batch out. Oh, wow. So those were two, two busy years, I'm sure. Yeah. But but yeah, we, we built the the main structure, built the grain elevator, and then built the malting machinery inside the structure. Oh, wow.

chris:

So you were a very smart man. I, I'll just put it out there.

aaron:

It's nice. Be the same. You're a very kind man. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

chris:

That's what I want people to think. Right. So in your, your business, I've realized that you can't run everything by yourself, especially in operation this big. So who have you surrounded yourself with? Like within

aaron:

the malt house? Well, you know, a lot of people who have just turned out to be totally key to the operation just kind of showed up along the way. My head maltster is mark Van Wellenberg guy that I grew up with in Salisbury. He heard what I was doing and he had he had kind of a, a office job like I had before that. Yeah. And I think he wanted to do something similar. And so, he came along. I mean, he's just been invaluable. He's my head maltster now. I hired a couple of guys off of the farms that I work with. Oh yeah. Really good ingenuity in farm hands. Right? Like they're used to fixing machinery, so. Yep. And that's a big part of the job out there. And so yeah, a couple of those guys hired another Another person that I'd, I'd worked with for a long time, Chad, and then and then for for bagging the grain at the end of the process. We've got a couple of high school kids who come in after school. Oh yeah. And fill bags of grain for a couple hours and go back home. So Yeah. That's perfect. But yeah, really I, I've really lucked out. I've, I've only, I've only had to give the you know, we're letting you go speech, I think like five or six times over the years. Oh yeah. So, yeah. That's fantastic. For as long as you've been mad. You don't Yeah. No. Nobody enjoys that one. No. So,

chris:

sorry, I was trying, I really asked that question to figure out who was the person, like actually there, like looking over, like when you were trying to figure out the temperatures and malting and transitioning and you gave it to me. I just didn't know what the, what the right question was, but I figured. I would find it out. You,

tyler:

you got there that way. So what was one of the biggest obstacles you had to overcome to get it up and running and as successful

aaron:

as you are? Oh boy. There have been a lot I can imagine. I mean, just what stands out to me is, is just the, it's, it's difficult. There, there's always a reason not to keep progressing towards your goal. Right. And the, the thing that really just stands out to me, I've got a, I've got a picture of myself on a day. It was like, it was like 50 degrees out and I'm, I'm standing knee deep in just this mud water. It was back when we were grading out the field for the, for the malt house. And like I, I remember the mud was up to my ankles anyway but it was like, We, we couldn't do any grading, but it was like, okay, well what can I do today? Yeah. And so, I needed to set some locations like for the corner of the building, stuff like that. And and what I could do was set some stakes at the edge of the pond and then triangulate locations off of those. Oh yeah. And, and just wait out in the water and work on that. So, yeah. But yeah, I mean there, there's always, you know, you can always say like, oh, it's raining. I can't do anything today. But if you think about it, you can plan or you can there's something you can do to keep it moving forward. Yeah. Which

chris:

is, it's weird cause I feel like there's a lot of people who don't think that way in general, cuz they're like, oh, well this is, this. Woe was me, this happened, I can't do this. Maybe

aaron:

God doesn't want me to do this. Yeah. You know? Right. Yeah. It's

chris:

like, but really, I'm pretty sure it was just there to see how much you wanted to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so I like that because we had somebody the other day, they were like, oh, I don't have anything, so I can't do anything today at my, at my other job. And I'm like, or there's no customers here, so why don't you call these people or do this or do some training. You know, there, there's always ways to like further yourself.

aaron:

Oh yeah. I, I didn't have a bathroom at the malt house for about six months, so. Oh yeah. Like, you can, you can find ways. Oh yeah.

chris:

I was

tyler:

like, well, since we went with the obstacles, I'm gonna steal one of Chris's questions. And what would you define success as then?

aaron:

Oh boy, that's a tough one. Either for yourself or the business? Either one. Yeah. Well, so I've got kids and I, I tell'em Bible story and you just, your question made me think of this. So, like, a few nights ago, I, I asked like, well, Wait, okay, well what was the first commandment? And they told me like the first of the 10 commandments, and I said, no, no, no, no, no. Like the first commandment. And it was, you know, don't eat this fruit, but we screwed that one up. Mm-hmm. So then the next, the next commandment was alright, you've been kicked out of the Garden of Eden now you must work and eat of the soil. Mm-hmm. And and so, you know, hard work, like, I hope to get to the end of my life and find that, you know, I've worked enough, but it, it's not enough to just work hard. Like, your work has to bear fruit. Right. So, just seeing seeing the fruit of my work, which is the malt Yeah. You know, in you guys' hands and in the hands of so many people enjoying it, you know, that, that feels really good. So, yeah. I mean that's, that's kind of success for me is seeing, seeing people drink my beer. Well, yeah. Beer made from my malt. Right.

chris:

I mean, you could go back and start making beer if

aaron:

you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be a lot of fun. But I've got so many people doing that for me right now. Right. Yeah. It's just great.

chris:

Exactly. See, he's smart. He's like, I'm not gonna, you know, I could open up a brewery, but wouldn't it be easier to just supply?

aaron:

Oh, I don't know about easier. You're, you were calling me smart earlier. I think there are a lot of people who would look at, you know, wow, he's, he's worked too hard. But it, it's no, it's been fun. I mean, I've really enjoyed every step along the way. Like, like it started out a lot of fun. Like when I quit my job, I, I just started touring malt houses all over the world. Oh, wow. So I took trips to, you know, Scotland, the uk, Germany, Canada, and just tried to tour malt houses wherever I went and bring back the ideas. But yeah, the World Tour part of it was, It's pretty great. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of

tyler:

fun. What was your favorite one to visit?

aaron:

Oh boy. You know, it it not so much relevant for building this malt house mm-hmm. But very traditional old malt houses on Isla and Scotland. Oh, yeah. Oh. So like if, probably good. Yeah. I mean, you guys are into whiskey. See, like Laro Glu yeah. Abag. Yeah. So all those distilleries are on that one island over here off Scotland. And boy is it beautiful. But but yeah, it's these, it's traditional malt houses. So like, my malting machinery is pneumatic malting machinery. Mm-hmm. So that, that's what I designed and built. But over there I mean they're, they're still malting the way it's been done for thousands and thousands of years. So like, oh wow. Like there's a, archeologists have recovered an ode to the Mesopotamian beer Goddess n Kazi that, that contains an early malting recipe. I didn't know that existed. Yeah. Yeah. So like, so it's, it's from like 1800 BC they think. But back then they would they would hydrate the malt, but they, they would spread it out like six inches deep on a big stone floor. Mm-hmm. And then they would actually hydrate and drain on the schedule with the tides. So like, there's this voice in the, the verse in the poem. It's like the tides come in, the tides go out, and that's like hydrating the grain, draining the grain. So at these malt houses in Scotland, they're still doing floor malting, so it's like six inches deep on this big concrete floor. Wow. And and they're dragging a rake through it to keep the rootlets from binding. Yeah. But yeah, at our operation I've got a big helical crane turner machine that takes care of that for me. Yeah. But but still really cool over there. And then for the kiln process, so. Mm-hmm. I use propane indirect fire. Propane. Yeah. Over there they dig peat from the peat bogs, yeah. Mm-hmm. And burn that. And yeah. And oh, they were so nice. They let me tour and like put, put my hand into the peat oven and stuff like Oh that. Oh, that's cool. Fuel the smoke. Yeah. Keeping around my hand. Yeah, it was just it was really cool to see that.

tyler:

Can you use that that malt for beer then too? Or will? Are there beers that taste

aaron:

Petey? You could, I don't think they've been popular.

tyler:

I was gonna say, I've never had one and it doesn't sound great. So that answers my question.

chris:

But it makes sense for, for

aaron:

scotch. Oh, it works well for, right? Yeah, it works great for Scotch. Yeah. I was just

tyler:

curious if there was something out there. No,

chris:

I, I'm one for trying almost anything That is not one of them. No,

aaron:

that's not, I bet, I bet you could find one in the UK somewhere. Yeah. There's that one brewery over there that made the the beers where they, they like taxidermied animals around the outside of the beer, so it looks like you're kissing a squirrel or whatever when you, you know, like they have fun. One of those has to be p d They have fun. Yes.

chris:

See, I mean, when we, by year seven, someone will be, you know, sponsoring us and we'll do a tour and we'll hit that and I'll be like, hey, we'll, we'll reach out and like, Hey, you said some random places in the uk. Where should we

aaron:

try? Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Hit me up. I'll come with you. Sounds good. Yeah, yeah. You, you take a, yeah, you take a ferry over to Scotland, is that, or over to Isla, right? Yeah, mainland Scotland. Yeah. It's just really beautiful. It's one of those things, I'm

chris:

just so jealous. My family's been to London like a handful of times now, but they're like, cuz London, shit, there's just so much to do there. Oh yeah. In my head I'm like, Yeah, but do I really want to be in London or do I want to explore everything around London? Mm-hmm. It involves alcohol. Right.

aaron:

I'm not an alcoholic, I promise. Yeah. Yeah. Sam Smith brewery over there is worth a visit too. He has one. Yeah. So, oh. Oh, there, there's a singer named Sam Smith, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well the original Sam Smith, not his, it's over in I'm sure I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation cuz they like, you know, everything's Gloucester is spelled Glo Chester. Right. But yeah. Anyway, to me it looks like it's spelled Tadcaster, but it's over there in the uk, but one of only two breweries in the world where their firm enders are made outta stone. Oh, wow. So, most, most breweries use stainless steel fermenters, but yeah, stone firm enders over there. Yeah. Really nice flavor worth of visit. Yeah, I see. I have to put that on

chris:

the list. In my head, I'm like, I feel like Stone would give it a really different flavor, but it's very hard to find something that you could like seal like that and

aaron:

Yeah. And clean. Yeah. Yeah. And they make, they make epoxies for it. But but yeah. And then they, it's the, and since it's stoned, the ERs are square instead around. Okay. And then they have I can't remember if it was bronze or brass, but everything's held together with brass fittings or browns. Okay. Maybe, but yeah. So fancy. Oh, it's, it's really cool though. I, I think, I mean, it's another one of those things where it's just like, well, you just have to taste it and see if you taste a difference. Yeah. Right. But but yeah, I mean, I, I like to think the stone probably keeps more of the mineral content in the beer. Mm-hmm. Maybe it makes it taste a little sweeter. Yeah. I can see that. Do

tyler:

they ship anything over from like Europe over to the US or is that completely just Oh, oh yeah. Oh

aaron:

really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can find it in a lot of places. Okay. Okay. Yeah, if you ever get a chance to try, try to look for Sam Smith Sting that's what they found. But yeah, it's a, it's like a barrel aged really good, good stuff. Can you find that in the us? Yep. Oh, okay. I mean, like if you go to a bottle shop and try to order it, I mean, it's not made with my malt. So really if you go to a bottle shop, cause you should, you know, ask them what they have. Course it's made with Carolina Malt. I mean, that's what you really want. That's the really good stuff. Yeah. But still the stone fermenters are pretty cool. Yeah.

chris:

So combining multiple things on your website, because you used to work with websites and development and everything. Mm-hmm. Does it showcase the breweries that use your

aaron:

malt? We try to, it's, it's kind of a lot to keep up with. Okay. Yeah. But there, there is a page on our website you can go to and, and like it's organized by city. You can see what breweries in each city. But we're working on getting better at that. I've got a. A couple of people tasked to that right now. Right. So hopefully in a few years you can, well, in a few months you can see like a, a Google maps with little pens for Yeah. Oh yeah. We're working toward that. See, so one

tyler:

of Chris's short term goals is opening a bottle shop. So when he opens his, we'll make it short. So when he opens his bottle shop as the expert, what type of beer should he be looking for malt wise that he should keep in his bottle shop? Oh, for the best flavor. Of course, it's your malts, but like what, what are the type of, like malts that he's looking for?

aaron:

Well, so you, you've got the you've got the base malts. I mean, I, you know, you, you already said, oh, you know, obviously it's my malt. That's the best malt. Right. But but I mean, like I say, I, I kind of keep going back to freshness matters and then When we make malt, I mean, we're trying to fit one of those industry standard malt malt profiles, so Oh, okay. Like, they're, like, they're four base malts, so there's Pilsner Pale, Vienna, Munich. Gotcha. Okay. So we are trying to make a malt that, that matches the, the numbers that a brewery expects to see. So, number, when I say numbers, I mean, efficiency in terms of how much sugar it contributes to alcohol production. Right, okay. Color free amino nitrogen protein level amylase, enzyme level, things like that. So we're, we're trying to produce a malt that fits this industry, standard spec but is just fresher and has that local flavor. Yeah. So, so when you say what kind of malt, I mean the, the brewer then like the Brewer's recipe would typically. Involve selecting from among these industry standard malt specs. Mm-hmm. And just combining them in certain ratios and then changing and then mashing at different temperatures to bring out different compounds from the different malts that they're using. Okay. Yeah. And then that makes sense. Yeah.

tyler:

Is there a flagship malt that either you have or you would like to make that's different than the industry standard? Or is they, or the industry's old enough that they have their standard down? There's no, there's no messing with it.

aaron:

I mean, every once in a while a br a malt house comes out with, like, they say, oh, we have this new malt. Like, I, I think there's a, a, a malt house offering like Honey malt. And it, it was just, it was just a, it was a German malt that had previously been called Brew Malt, but it has kind of a, it contributes a little bit of honey flavors. So then they said, oh, well we're gonna call it honey Malt. But yeah, I mean, that, that kind of stuff happens, but but really I mean, those four base malts kind of, give you the main flavor chemicals that you can get out of the process. Okay. And so, now roasting is a whole different animal. So you that, like this beer that we're drinking has Crystal 40 in it. Mm-hmm. And that, that's a malt where you put it in the roaster and you cause the starch to break down into sugar and then crystallize a little bit. Oh, okay. So before it ever goes to the brew house. So, all kinds of interesting things you can do with a roaster. And we just got our roaster running last year, so we can now do roasted barley biscuit malt, and we're working on our recipes. Mm-hmm. We wanna make sure it's all. Perfect. Before he goes out, but Right. But yeah, I mean, so, like if you ever drink a porter or a stout, I mean, that would have roasted barley or chocolate malt or black patent or something like that. Oh, okay. So yeah, that, that, that's where that, that color and the beer comes from.

tyler:

We're gonna have to bring a master brewer on here now. Yes. This has opened up so many other questions on the back end of the malting process.

aaron:

Oh, you should. Yeah. I mean, yeah. It, it, there's so much to it. But yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun. What, what was your, when, when did you ask me oh, what, what kind of malts should he look for? What, yeah. But yeah, tho those, those four base malts, Pilsner Pale, VNA Munich, I mean, that's, that's kind of what the main malting machinery turns out. And then you can start with those base malts and roast to achieve different you know, different, different specs from there. Okay. So

tyler:

what's your favorite style beer

aaron:

then? I. Oh, I can't pick one. Well, like, like Chris was observing earlier, like you, you've got your springtime beers and your summertime beers, and your wintertime beers. But but no, I, I really love a good light lagr. Okay. Okay. And well, yeah, I, I, I can't, I can't name a favorite on the podcast. Very

chris:

true. So along with this, this bottle shop that I've looked into slightly outta the corner of my eye I also really like ciders, even though they're super sweet and will probably give me a horrible hangover. Mm-hmm. Do you guys apply any ciders with

aaron:

malt? Well, I mean, I don't, I don't know if, I mean, you, you certainly could make like a blended cider beer. But typically cider doesn't have mal in it. I mean, you could try. Yeah. Yeah. Might be good.

chris:

I'm trying to see if somebody's out there already taking my ideas as per usual. Yep.

tyler:

Now that you say that, someone's gonna try it. If they haven't already,

aaron:

I'm sure they have. Well, I know our customer yeehaw, they do a fair amount of cider and I, I don't know if they do any blended cider beer type of thing, but Interesting. It would be interesting to find out. I'd like to ask Bull City. Yeah, yeah. Figure it out. But yeah, the bottle shop idea, cool idea. You should do it.

chris:

See, problem is I have a, a way of living currently Uhhuh and opening a bottle shop would not be conducive to that living right now.

aaron:

It would be like you. Yeah.

chris:

A lot of my savings just. Don't be. Well, it's

tyler:

worked out. So just saying. True. Yeah. Yeah. We are starting to come up on time though, so I have a couple more questions. I guess the, the big question is, if you were to tell your younger self one thing,

aaron:

what would it be? Hmm. Well, you, you did a good job buddy. You know, appreciate all the all the attention to studying and playing sports, you know, that, that really paid off. Thanks. I feel like you set me up pretty well. Yeah,

tyler:

I like that. I love that. Yeah. That was probably one of the best responses

chris:

to it. Yes. Yeah. I'm like, I didn't have

aaron:

nothing. Don't, don't, don't be so mad at mom for making you clean your room. It's important. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

chris:

I like that. But on a, on a normal note now that we, like I said, I like going in the past to jump forward. Where can people like, follow your, like your story or like as your brand grows and

aaron:

whatnot? So, we're okay, so my, my focus until this year has been build the machines, make'em as efficient as possible, try to get cost of production down. And then this year I'm, I'm finally trying to make sure that people who drink our beer, cuz it, I mean, up to this year, I, I think maybe 1% of the people who have dranken drunk a beer with Carolina Malt in it actually knew that fact. Right. So this year I really wanna try to get it out. So, we, we've got a Facebook page, Instagram page and if you, if you, we, we've got this hashtag spread the malt. Okay. Which I'm, I'm not a social media person, so I don't, I don't exactly know what that implies, but yeah. Hashtag spread the malt. I was told to say that. Good. But yeah Facebook, Instagram and then I know there's some other, oh, there's LinkedIn. That's a thing. Yep, yep. So, yeah. So, so we're, we're trying to kind of get the word out through those channels. Yeah. And probably fine by talking to people like you. Yeah. So, thanks for having me down. Absolutely.

tyler:

So probably searching for Carolina Malt House, is that

aaron:

right? Yeah. Carolina Malt House or that, that spread the malt hashtag mal. I, I think, I think we've only started on that like a month ago, so. Okay. But yeah. Carolina Malthouse, check us out please. We know the importance

tyler:

of finding a good social media team too. We actually partnered up with they're actually closer to where you are than us, but it's called Sway Sway Creations, and they've taken over almost all of our social media now, so. Oh, okay. Okay. It looks much better than what it did before and everything. Yes. Nice. And I actually do have another shout out this for this month that I didn't tell Chris about, but for the Cargo district, clear Vision Auto Glass. Mm-hmm. There was a rock that went into my windshield and shattered my windshield and they were able to get me up and running and safe again and no problem at all. So if anyone has a horrible incident like I did with rocks going through your windshield, go to Clear Vision Auto Glass and they'll work with your insurance and get you all set up and ready to go. So what you're saying, big shit out to them.

chris:

Don't ride too close.

tyler:

I wasn't that close to the truck that rock shot out at me because I haven't thought about it too. I was like, there's stuff coming off that truck. Let me get back a little bit further and then like 30 seconds after that, boom.

aaron:

Sure enough, yeah, you probably just got right in the zone for the second bounce to catch up. You know? Like you, you were outta danger and then Yeah, well like Exactly.

chris:

People don't realize how far 200 feet is like the back of those dumb trucks, like stay back 200 feet and I'm like, eh,

aaron:

that's most of the football field, right?

tyler:

Yeah.

chris:

And no one's gonna be that far away from a truck.

aaron:

Nope.

chris:

I can't pass you, I can't do anything. Imagine that on a one way, like on a two-lane highway, if you actually stayed back, I'd be so mad at

aaron:

life. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Impractical warnings. Yes. Yeah. But it's very good

chris:

if you're a lawyer. Right. But thank you. I just wanna thank you so much for popping

aaron:

on here. Thanks for having me down. I, I, yeah. Really appreciate Absolutely. Chance, thank you. To talk a little bit about the malt house and yeah, I, I just trying to make sure people understand that that option to get a locally grown beer.

tyler:

Yeah, that's great. I'll definitely be asking more and asking even more questions to the bartenders at the breweries now, so they, they'll be looking forward to that. Yes. Good. Where did this come

aaron:

from?

chris:

We are definitely those people at the bar. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm pretty sure my bartenders hate me because I sit there and I'm like, okay, so what is in this whiskey? Why do you have this drink on tap? And the. One, I'd just like to know, because if you spent all this time and hours learning this, you should use it for something.

aaron:

It's, I mean, it's funny. I mean, we, we've been in business for five years now. Mm-hmm. But just, it was late last year. I went to one of my best customers to eat dinner. Mm-hmm. And I said, Hey, I, you know, I heard you guys heard you guys use locally grown malt in your beer. And the the server was like, I don't know, maybe. And so, but yeah, I mean, I called up their their owner and said like, you know, Hey, you, you guys are you know, you gotta let your customers know, like, and, and so we, we invited got'em to bring their whole front house staff out. Oh, that's to the mal house. And so we, we, we try to be zero waste. Like all of our, all of our malt waste goes to a farm up the road, feed pigs and chickens. And so we, we got a pork tenderloin from one of those pigs that was fed on malt waste, cooked that up for the Oh wow. For his whole team. Gave him a tour of the place got'em on the zip line, the swing, the blueberry patch, all that. And well you have all that at your malt house. You guys gotta come up. I was say, now we have to here, but like, he, I mean, two weeks, the blueberry will be ripe. You got, you gotta come up. Oh, yeah. Sold on that. But yeah. And that, and so got them out and then they go back and then they can tell the customer about it. Yeah. You know, like that. That's just the whole we just have to stay on top of that. Like, you know, there's, there's turnover in the industry, but we just gotta, gotta stay on it. Of course. Yeah. Bring'em up. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

chris:

But yeah, I just want to say, yeah. Thank you for driving down here. We will definitely try and schedule something with our ridiculous schedules to come up there. Good. I, I love that area. I've still never been to Lake Norman, but Oh, really? I've been to Charlotte and Hickory area. It's a lot. You've driven through it all the time. Yeah. Oh yeah. Never,

aaron:

never to the lake. Lake Norton's. Great. I mean, yeah. Come up, see the malt house. Rent a pontoon boat. Just have yourself a great little weekend.

chris:

I might have to do that. Yep. Sold. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening though. It's been a blast. Trying out this silly goose. No, I, silly goose. Sneaky. I'm used to saying like silly goose to kids. Trying out the sneaky goose from Wilmington Brewing Company that actually uses some malt from Carolina Malt House. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You guys should check it out or check out the one that has a little bit more if they're malt, if it ever comes back in stock. Fingers you're scrub. Yeah, there you go. But yeah, like, comment, share, subscribe. Leave us a nice review on social media if you can, because it helps the algorithm and we want to go to the top. Yep. 10% of podcast.

tyler:

And even if you don't have something nice to say, you can put it on our YouTube cuz that's new and I'll take any of the social media. It's possible. So put your comments there. Yeah. For

chris:

those who like YouTubes, we have one now. So yeah, check it out.

aaron:

Yep. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks Ben. Thank you guys. Really appreciate chance to be on. Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Cheers. Cheers.

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