Brewing Up Change with Mark Said & Chris Lacoe

Hey everyone! I'm excited to announce the latest episode of the Whiskey and Wisdom podcast.

Here are three key takeaways from this episode:

1. The importance of being open to new experiences
2. Creating a welcoming environment
3. Celebrating milestones and gratitude

I highly recommend giving this episode a listen to gain some valuable insightsYou can find the episode on our website or your favorite podcast platform. Cheers to another great episode of Whiskey and Wisdom! 🥃🎧

@lelandbrewingco

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How to find us:
Whiskey & Wisdom: @whiskey.and.wisdom
Chris Kellum: @ctkellum
LinkedIn: Christopher Kellum
Tyler Yaw: @tyler_yaw_
LinkedIn: Tyler Yaw

Transcript

Tyler: 0:31

Welcome back to the Whiskey and Wisdom podcast, guys. We are actually live on location at the Leland Brewing Company. We actually have a live going on right now. Hopefully you made it for that on Instagram and Facebook, but if you didn't, you have us now. So without further ado, you already know Chris and I, and we have Chris Lecoe sitting over here to my left. We've had him on the podcast before. And actually, Mark, I don't know your last name. Saeed. And we have Mark Said, and these are two of the four owners, right? Of the Leland Brewing Company. And we're having our Whiskey and Wisdom event tonight at the Leland Brewing Company as well. And they were gracious enough to host us here. So we wanted to shout them out as well and bring them on and learn a little bit more about the brewery. Even more so than we talked about with LaCoe before. So whoever wants to take it away first, tell us about a little about the brewery we have here.

Lacoe: 1:28

Go ahead. All right. I knew that was

Saieed: 1:31

going to happen. So we have been approaching, we're approaching our seventh week in business. It is been an adventure. I cannot say it's not, it's been a great experience so far. The community. Our guests have all been extremely receptive to every offering that we've had. We've got 12 amazing options made in house from stouts to several different versions of IPAs. And now our infusion line has been selling out really well with our hazies and now the brown the Brunswick brown with that infusion line. It's, it's, it's been great. Cannot say a negative thing so far. It's been fantastic.

Tyler: 2:10

This has been my new brewery of choice. Both of them probably see me more than they'd like to see me here. But I come in every single time there is a new keg that is tapped to try it out. And you're right, the infusion lines have been on point. I've been very impressed.

Saieed: 2:26

We've got some good minds in the back, so they're making something good. Yeah, that's the way to

Tyler: 2:30

do it. Tell us about your experience with it now, Chris.

Lacoe: 2:34

It's been, it's been interesting. Yeah? Don't sound too excited. No, no, we as Mark said, you know, we're on our, our 12th beer already in seven weeks. We've got four more coming out in the next week. Oh wow. I think they brewed today, they brewed an octo no, they brewed a pumpkin beer today. We got a seltzer coming out and I think in basically two weeks we'll have the can of lime running and we'll start having cans out. Oh nice. It's been unreal, we've gotten a great response outside of just the brewery itself. I think we're in 37 different locations on tap at 37 other places right now, which is phenomenal for seven weeks being in business. I, I would dare say there's probably not too many other breweries that have been able to pull that off. We had a great sales team. The beer is good. So, you know, I think we've got a good atmosphere here and a good thing coming. The town has been more than pleasant for us to be here and helped us out. So I think You know, you kind of combine all those things together along with just personalities and the great bar staff that we have, et cetera, et cetera. It's it's been jamming. Yeah. We haven't really even gotten into live music yet or any, any, any kind of add ons to what we're doing that will come in time. Yeah, I had a feeling

Tyler: 3:46

you guys were going to hit the ground running with the few setbacks that we talked about on the previous podcast. A

Lacoe: 3:51

few setbacks? Putting it politely. Seriously could write a book. I mean, I would read it. You haven't started? I'm not a person to write it, but I could tell somebody.

Tyler: 4:04

There's actually a guy who I work with, he's my coach, but his business, they do this other line where you can actually just transcribe what you want in the book and they'll like put it all together and make it sound good for you. So if you just want to sit in front of a microphone and talk

Kellum: 4:16

about

Lacoe: 4:16

it, I don't know that it will sell a single copy, but it will be a phenomenal book. I can

Tyler: 4:22

tell you that. Well, you got two buyers right here. Yes.

Kellum: 4:25

So question for you guys. I know it's taken a while to get this all together and put together cause I wasn't here on launch, unfortunately. I was out and about traveling. What was your first beer that

Lacoe: 4:37

you guys released? The Golden Sunset. Okay. Yeah, the Golden Ale. So we opened with three beers. It was the Brunswick Brown that went out to market first. Well, yeah, actually, so the Golden was the one we wanted to release. The Brown, Brunswick Brown ended up going out first and we ended up calling it Shea Day IPA. So those were the first three when we opened. And, and I think two of them were screw ups. We didn't even, we weren't even trying to make them, like it just ended up happening and they, they sell a ton. We've already, we've Maybe like two kegs left of it. Oh, wow. So yeah, it's, it's yeah. It's kind of crazy.

Saieed: 5:12

It's, it's, it's really great that to have first runs of almost every batch be winners. Yes. Generally you have, you know, let's do a test batch and see how it turns out. And we've not had any sort of waste. We've not had any like, wow, this is really bad, but put it on the market. No, everyone, every one of the first batches that we've got on the board have been winners. That's

Lacoe: 5:37

fantastic. And it's

Saieed: 5:39

really goes to show you the, the, the, the, the skill that we've got in the back.

Lacoe: 5:45

And so another side of that is when we look at analytics for, you know, the day, the week, the month. Right. We'll look at what's selling. And let's just say like the hazy is number one seller and it might sell, you know, 200 beers a day. Well, all the other beers. We'll be like 175, 174, 172, 170, 169. They're all within like one, you know, like within 10 or 15 beers of each other. It's kind of weird. Which I think that says a lot about the beer too, considering we do have some guest apps on and there's some other beers that we don't carry that are still selling. So,

Kellum: 6:19

so do you guys, cause you're, I'm assuming you run the front of the house for the most part, the daily business. How did you find the people to run like the. The back half, making the beers and

Saieed: 6:31

everything. That came from Nick. Nick is our main sales head. And he brought Ethan Hole on. And Ethan has a long experience in the brewery business. He's had his own breweries in the past. And he's done quite well for himself. He's been an ex Wilmington firefighter. Okay. And he, we, he approached us. We looked over his, his resume, his reputation, and what he's done in the past. And, you know, let's, let's go. We didn't try any of his products before. So this was, you know, we're all kind of working on faith. And it, you know, faith worked out.

Lacoe: 7:07

Yeah. I

Tyler: 7:08

love it. It seems like it's working out pretty well for the town, too. Every time I come in here, it's at different times, days of the week, and the bar stays pretty full for the most part around here, so I think Leland was really looking forward to something like this, and I think you guys delivered on what you were trying to accomplish so far, so there's only good things coming, it seems like, down the road.

Lacoe: 7:29

Hopefully. That's the plan, right? Right? Forward moving. Forward

Saieed: 7:33

moving. Progress. So,

Kellum: 7:36

cuz I'm the one asking all the alcohol questions. Are you, once you hit like 16, is that gonna be like your set and just rotate a few of them out? Are you thinking of going, kind of, going a little bit more or are you just gonna do a big rotation all year?

Saieed: 7:50

I think the plan is have a base 16 and then keep with the infusion line. The infusion line is never gonna be consistent, so you'll have... A couple that will be like, you know what, that was a favorite, but it's seasonal. You won't have mango, pineapple in the wintertime. But you'll continually change out those flavors, move those things around. Will you have a, a pumpkin Oktoberfest? No, of course. So you, there's, there, there will be changes throughout the menu as well as what we can bring in house for, for those things that we will not produce in house, such as your sours and those other items. Nice.

Kellum: 8:28

So, cause you mentioned infusion a few times. What exactly is that? Cause I mean, we drink whiskey, not beer too much. So can

Lacoe: 8:36

you explain that? Basically, they take a half barrel, half keg and put whatever they're going to infuse that product, that beer. They put it in there, let it sit for three, four, five days, whatever it is, pull, pull that stuff out. And so that's had time to soak into the beer and, and create a different flavor profile. Then they'll put it into another keg. Pressurize it and then we'll, we'll tap it. Like we've got a, we've got one coming out tomorrow, which is our stout with peanut butter marshmallow and banana. Oh, and it is supposed to be, he's been tasting it today. He said it was so, yeah, you know, you may want to keep that one. Yeah, it

Kellum: 9:17

sounds delicious. And there's the things you'll get, you can get all year. So yeah, I'm intrigued. Kind of see where you go from there with

Saieed: 9:25

your infusion collection. And the beauty of a brewery is that you can have a small batch of something. Keep it on tap, it'll, it'll, it'll keep for a while. Versus going mainstream with you, with the larger, more distributable items, where you'll be producing a lot on a large, much larger scale.

Tyler: 9:42

Okay. So where we're sitting now, what would you say is both of your favorite beers that you have on tap?

Saieed: 9:49

Mine is the wit. I like the wit a lot.

Lacoe: 9:52

The brown is

Saieed: 9:53

really good.

Lacoe: 9:54

That is good. I'm drinking the golden right now. Super light, easy. The hazy is actually really good and I'm not an IPA guy. Yeah, I really don't have a favorite. I just kind of move down the line, drink it back. Whatever I feel like drinking that day is what I drink. That's typically what I've done

Saieed: 10:10

too. That's a good point, Chris. The IPAs we have are not your IPAs that we've had outside breweries. Where they're more. Yeah. They're not in your face and slap you in the face. I can't stand for IPAs. I like our IPAs, not because I'm biased or anything, but they actually are very refreshing.

Lacoe: 10:28

They're not like a heavy hop forward. Yeah. You know, look, we've, we've been hearing it from a lot of people and you can hear, you can say you heard it here first you know, tropical lightning is the biggest name around here. Yeah. And, and that's a great beer. But you. Most people is not, not going to drink three or four of those. You're going to drink one or two. Yeah. We have been hearing from a lot of beer guys that our Seneca guns is going to make a run for them. Like that's, that's going to be one that's going to push tropical lightning pretty hard. Which would be great because to be able to be in that same league and to have anything remotely close to what Wilmington Brewing has done there. would be amazing. We would, we would honor that any way we could. So hopefully that beer does continue to push on and can win over some people that just can't handle a lot of that big heavy, you know, hoppy, strong IPA. I can second that

Tyler: 11:16

too. That's what I'm sipping on right now too. It's just out of my reach. But I was doing the same thing at first before I tried the Seneca guns, just kind of bouncing around. Like I liked them all. And it's like, yeah, what do I feel like drinking today? But I've been going back to that one. Like my second beer every single time is going back to that Seneca gun. So I agree.

Saieed: 11:32

Yeah, that

Lacoe: 11:33

was very good. So because

Kellum: 11:35

you guys are experienced. Exploding in the market. Do you have plans to expand the

Lacoe: 11:40

brewery at all? Or are you just gonna, you know, sit in the rat, make a new location or something in the future? Unless one of us wins the lottery tomorrow. It's just gonna be a while. I mean, yeah, we got plans, obviously. We own five acres here. This is about two and a half that you can see that's cleared. Yeah. So we do have plenty of room to do You gotta... Got to keep doing like we are now and keep pushing forward and hope that we can continue to make good beer and You know, people will like it and we can sell it. So, yeah, so I know

Tyler: 12:14

you have guest taps as well for like you said, like the sours and the seltzers and stuff like that. So what are you drinking right now?

Lacoe: 12:21

I'm a

Saieed: 12:21

cider cider fan. So I have a mixture. We've made a bit of kind of mocktails, cocktails, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So this is Larry's lemonade with ludicrous. That's a nice little mixture over ice. It looks good and it tastes good. So,

Lacoe: 12:38

I know what I'm trying.

Tyler: 12:40

The only reason why I knew what it was is because I had it yesterday when I, when we were coming in and doing the planning for today.

Lacoe: 12:45

It gives

12:46

you

Saieed: 12:46

that kind of, it separates the different colors. So it gives you that kind of sort of Island feel.

Lacoe: 12:51

I like that.

Kellum: 12:53

I mean, it is so hot outside. You need something refreshing. Right. For those who aren't watching it live. I mean, it was 92 when we started setting

Lacoe: 13:04

up earlier at least.

Kellum: 13:05

Yeah. And I already went through one t shirt and then I, I bought one while I was here. I will say, I don't know who makes your shirts, but they are most comfortable. Like, furry t shirts I've bought in

Lacoe: 13:19

years. So, the logo shop, which is right down the street. Okay. Oh, nice. We've, we've, for the most part, almost everything we've done here, we've tried to keep in house with Leland people. Yeah, the signs on the buildings were made by Leland people. You know, t shirts, hats, and all that are Leland companies. We've done little things here and there. We've tried to do everything we could to support local Leland stuff. I love that. The bar at a bar was, you know, we've done everything that we could to try and keep it within people and friends and family and everything that we know around here. So, so that we always had that Leland feel. We are Leland Brewing Company. You know, it's the town of Leland.

Tyler: 13:56

So with that being said to every single one of the beers that you've brewed so far is named after something based in Leland. Is that right? Basically, yeah.

Lacoe: 14:06

Or

Tyler: 14:07

Brunswick County in the area.

Lacoe: 14:10

LA, there's a couple of LA

Saieed: 14:13

came out just with the Barbie movie, the LA blonde.

Lacoe: 14:15

Right. We should have made it pink if we were going to do that.

Tyler: 14:19

Yeah. Have that some, some type of infusion in there and make it look pretty cool. You would have sold

Kellum: 14:25

so many of those just saying

Lacoe: 14:28

I don't know. I don't know to Barbie is the the image we want to go to that's little kids

Tyler: 14:35

Several nostalgia thing, but then again you never know with all the Alcohol laws these days. I'd be trying to say you're selling it to kids and all that fun stuff. And we just

Saieed: 14:45

had an ABC inspection this morning. I've learned a lot, so yeah. Oh

Tyler: 14:48

yeah. I'm sure it's ever learning and ever changing around here. It's one

Kellum: 14:53

of those things where like you have a big book of rules and you're like, okay, cool. And then when they show up, they're like, well,

Tyler: 15:00

like that, that's not in the

Kellum: 15:02

book. Mm hmm. So Ray area, right? Yes. I applaud every. Alcohol facility, because there's so many rules you have to keep up

Tyler: 15:12

with. All the things in the back that you never think about when you come in and enjoy your beer. You're never thinking about everything that's going on in the backside. And then, also, when I was, I was talking to one of your breweries the other day, I don't remember his name, but he was going ham on all of the, yeah, yeah, that's who it was, on all of the science that behind each and every one of the beers and why it's made and how it's made and what makes it do what it does, and it was mind

Saieed: 15:41

blowing. You have to look at a brewery as a chemistry lab, a kitchen, and it just, it's, it's a playground of flavors.

Lacoe: 15:52

That kid is like a walking beaker and microscope. Like he is, he, this stuff that his knowledge and that brain of his, like, I can't talk to him. I got, he starts talking to me and he looks at me and laughs. He goes, I can tell you don't know what You're right, Brian. I have no idea what you're talking about. I was like, it sounds awesome, but I have no idea what you're talking about. And

Tyler: 16:11

there was quite a few times I was like, and what does that mean? Can you break

Lacoe: 16:14

that down again? He is, he is so into, in tune with what he's doing. He's awesome. Yeah. Found a good guy back there.

Kellum: 16:22

I love it. So, cause I'm about to head over to our, our true in person event. Yeah. Question for you guys. What would success for this business and personally look like in the next like five, 10 years? Hm.

IDK: 16:38

Ooh, shit.

Kellum: 16:41

I kinda hinted at it a little earlier

Lacoe: 16:42

over here. Back on, man. It's the wisdom part. Yes. You know, one of our, our partners owns the land next to us. We, and then working with the group on the other side of them. Towns building an amphitheater across the street. So, When you look at Leland as a whole, like this is the gateway district to Leland is what this is trying to transform into. This is old Leland, this is original Leland. The ideas that we have about making this a destination place for our business is partnering up with everyone around us and building a facility and an area that which people can come and just park and hang out all day. Kid friendly, you know, up and up and down all ages. We, we have a very wide range of clientele. I mean, we have tons of older people all the way down to the two and three year olds that are outside playing sometimes 15, 20 of them at a time. Cause we have all the grass areas out back and stuff. So the mom and dads love that, but. So as a whole, we've always talked about building this as a place that people could come and hang out and as the people around us grow and build and restaurants and attractions or whatever it is, housing and stuff around us and of course the town with the the the park, they're going to start in October with you know, the amphitheater and then they're having splash pads and all these things that are going to be part of that. It's going to just be a destination for people that don't necessarily want to have to go over the bridge into Wilmington. And then also, there's a lot of people that would start coming from Wilmington and understanding that Leland is not just this hole in the wall. Leland is like a big place and constantly growing. Becoming a hub.

Saieed: 18:29

Yeah. This will be a hub for gathering. With, with the, and we can be, we're establishing ourselves as the main attraction in Leland, hopefully Brunswick County. To attract all those families driving in, walking in as you have as much residential building in the area. Definitely wanted to ensure that this is a welcoming location for your dates, for your families, for your just, you know, I want to just get out of the house, want to do something, come to the brewery.

Lacoe: 19:01

Yes, we've been able to do stuff that most breweries can't. We have, we have space and land, right? I mean, our buildings. Close to 8, 000 square feet. But again, with five acres, there's a lot, you know, with the restaurant we're building out back and the different things that we're doing. This is, and the way we set this building up with the multiple layers of sitting out front with another bar, sitting in the back for the restaurant, you can do live music outside if you don't want to hear it come inside as we're sitting here, we have couches, there's no speakers upstairs, it's just a different vibe. So that's like kind of our long term goals with this is to turn this into a calm hangout place that fits for everybody, you know. Brings up

Tyler: 19:43

a good point. When I was setting out all the invites for people to come here, the guests have been on the podcast. I've had a few people reach out and they're like, Oh, I haven't been able to find someone for the kids. And I was like, just don't come on out. There's always, like, how old are your kids? There's kids out there playing with them. They'll find a friend to go and play with out in the grass. Oh, it's wild. So, they were super excited knowing that they could bring their kids out here and kind of hang out and just kind of relax too. So, yeah, I love that concept. Especially having two little ones myself.

IDK: 20:10

I

Lacoe: 20:11

just

Kellum: 20:12

wanted to say, thank you guys for hopping on before we go crazy into talking to a bunch of people. Yeah. I mean, it's been great to show up here. Hopefully we'll come back and do something else.

Lacoe: 20:22

Thank you for allowing this to be your like one year celebration. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Kellum: 20:27

Appreciate you having that. Congratulations. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for opening it up for us. Yeah. I was surprised slightly that we made it to a year. So it was nice to show up to a spot that is this great and this new to kind of celebrate.

Tyler: 20:41

Yeah. Especially a past, past guests on the podcast made it even better to brings it all brings all together.

Kellum: 20:46

Awesome. All right. Check them out at Leland Brewing Co

Lacoe: 20:51

on lelandbrewing. com. There you go. We're on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook. YouTube, TikTok everything, all of them, love it.

Tyler: 21:02

They have a great social media team. Shout out to all of them. Ryan and Gentry, they're doing a fantastic job. Ryan and

Lacoe: 21:07

Gentry. Yep. Ryan's working right now.

Kellum: 21:11

Love it. Well, thank you, fellas. Cheers.

Lacoe: 21:14

Cheers. Where you at, Tyler? Here, your shirt. That's all the way. We were slacking.