#37: Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works)

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:00:00]:

Anytime somebody calls and asks, should I open a brewery? And I I always tell them, plan for 2 times as much time and 2 times as much money, and then you might be right. We were wrong on how much the equipment's gonna cost. We were wrong on how much the construction was gonna cost. We were wrong on the 77 Thousand change orders that we had with a wall that fell into the street. The building wasn't measured correctly by the architects. All the windows came in the wrong size. You name it. The problem happened.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:00:26]:

It was not all rose colored glasses, for those 1st 2 years. What could go wrong did, and so it's really a It's it's, it's perseverance. It's believing in a vision and not letting the the obstacles get in the way.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:41]:

Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I'm your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today, I'm coming to you live not too far from where our guest joins us here in the heart of Ohio City. Brent Zimmerman is the cofounder and CEO of Saucy Brew Brew Works, which is a Cleveland based production brewery and brewpub with roots based in the Steelman building off 29th and Detroit Avenue, which has since Spread into Central Ohio and to Michigan. Over the last year, Saucy became the 4th fastest growing brand in the state of Ohio And is now of the top grossing craft breweries in Cleveland, winning beer and brewpub awards across the board from cleveland.com's best brewery To Ohio City's business of the year. Brent is an entrepreneur, beer fanatic and has steered Saucy Brew Works from inception to where it stands today, Valued at over $100,000,000 across capital raising branding construction distribution community building culture product and geographic expansion.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:54]:

I loved hearing about Brent's story starting up what is now a true staple in Ohio City and beyond. I hope you all enjoy my conversation with Brent Zimmerman. Having lived in Ohio City over the past few years, I remember when Saucy first opened back in In 2017 or so, and just like witnessing this entire transformation of Hinge Town and the whole area around Detroit Avenue with Saucy, in my mind, really as The anchor institution. And it is really been awesome to see the vibrancy of the neighborhood just continue to evolve. And I've been really looking forward to this conversation because I I think the entrepreneurial journey you're on here really required Some prescience and foresight and vision. And, and so I'm excited to just kind of hear your story and, and how it's all transpired. So thank you for, for coming on, Brent.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:02:49]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So the Saucy journey really started for me in, like, 2015, probably. I was asked to to be a seed investor of another brewery and did a lot of work around that. My my background, I owned a long hedge fund, I worked on Wall Street, I worked for a big mutual fund company, so nothing to do with the brewing industry.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:03:10]:

But I analyzed, managed, bought, sold 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars risk in almost any industry you can think of around the world, and so one of my, I guess, skills is being able to analyze value, I will say. And I applied that kinda to to the brewing industry and went into this, you know, head over heels into figuring out what What the brewing industry was other than than the beer I drank and what it was all about. And I kinda fell in love with it. And during that course of time, I brought Eric Anderson, my cofounder in, to look at, basically, the operational side of what goes on in a brewery because I've never brewed a beer before in my life and still haven't to this day. I just drink them. And he's a biologist by trade. He opened a couple breweries. He's he's he might as well be an engineer.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:04:00]:

The guy is really a brilliant guy. And so we kinda tackle this together. I decided, you know, I wanted to do it. I just didn't wanna do it with, the original partner. Yeah. No offense to them. I just kinda wanna do my own thing. And Eric, at the time, I had opened another brewery and was promised a bunch of things that never came to fruition.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:04:19]:

And so we kinda had a post mortem, and I was like, alright. You know, what's going on with your life? We've talked about me for a month now, you know, like, what what, you know, what's clicking for you? And he's he seemed a little downtrodden, and And I got to the root of it, and he created all this, engineered it all, built it all, was the brew master, etcetera. He just wanted ownership. I'm like, oh, That's easy. I'll let's do it ourselves. I'll give you ownership. And he kinda, like, fell off his shoes, like, you you'll give me ownership? I'm like, yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:46]:

No problem. Why wouldn't I?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:04:48]:

And so I think 5 days or less, we had an operating agreement written and off to the races we went, you know, to try to find The perfect location and all those kind of things while he was building what the the equipment specs were, recipes, you know, talking to hop Providers for contracts, all all the stuff you have to do as a brewery. I was doing, you know, kind of the real estate side of things, which I do and I always have done, grew up in in doing that. And we fell in love with the Steelman building, which At the time, if you remember, it was dilapidated. Mhmm. Windows broken all over the sidewalk, syringes on the sidewalk, and I'm not kidding. It was just not, like, ideal at that time, but I saw its proximity to downtown Cleveland, As well as the housing stock and how old the Iowa City is and all that kind of stuff. And I also knew that I could somehow affect change because of of that property as well as owning an adjacent parking lot. You know, the building's about 14,000 square feet.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:05:49]:

It it it pretty it pretty well fit From a size perspective, how open it was, from a height perspective, it was doable, and it was close to the city, which we wanted. After living in Boston, New York for 6, 7, 8 years, I no longer wanted to live somewhere and have to drive all the time to come to work, and I still don't to this day. That kinda drove a lot of it. I thought that the neighborhood would really turn around. I didn't think it would happen as quickly as it did, to be honest with you. Mhmm. We contributed our parking lot with Gram VC and Michael Panzeca and Fred Geiss and Jim Doyle Combine parcels to build to build church and state as well. And so that obviously helped anchor the entire neighborhood with, you know, a 158 apartment units right on top of us.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:06:33]:

So it was definitely part of the vision, eventually. It happened a lot quicker than I thought it would. But it's been, yeah, it's been a great transformation and continues to, You know, this day continues to grow.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:45]:

Yeah. It's it is pretty incredible, the the transformation. In those 1st 2 years from 2015 before Opening in 2017, what was the nature of the work that that you all were doing then? And I'm curious, you know, having seen some of the assumptions You've made kind of pan out correctly. If there were ones, you know, when you were thinking about value and risk that that didn't really pan out.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:07:06]:

Yeah. I'll take the last one first. There's tons of stuff that I was dead wrong on. And and anytime somebody calls and asks, should I open a brewery? And I I always tell them, Plan for 2 times as much time and 2 times as much money, and then you might be right. We were wrong on how much the equipment's gonna cost. We were wrong on how much the construction was gonna cost. We were wrong on the 77,000 change orders that we had with a wall that fell into the street. The building wasn't measured correctly by the Sex, all the windows came in the wrong size.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:07:35]:

You name it, the problem happened. It was not all rose colored glasses, for those 1st 2 years. What could go wrong did. And so it's really a it's it's a it's perseverance. It's believing in a vision and not letting the the obstacles get in the way. The former question, what was I doing on a day to day? I still have my day job, so I was managing, you know, with leverage, 2 and a half $1,000,000,000 of debt. Eric, well, I hired he was the 1st full time employee, so he's on payroll, I don't know, sometime 15 or 16 with no revenue. So I was doing things like all the legal, Trying to put the team together, all the real estate financing, and and and, of course, this is all, you know, basically, at the end of the day, it wasn't there's a building here, but it's Pretty much ground up.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:08:19]:

95% building was re rehab. Mhmm. A start up that we're putting in there as an anchor tenant. And so, you know, you can imagine that That whole exercise with banks, etcetera, trying to get that done. I had tons of meetings with Savista Bank and talked them into it, And so they've been they've been great partners for us, and it's worked out really well. You know, they took a chance. Of course, I had to sign my entire life away another large investor card that had to be insane to to get it done, but you name it, we were doing it. We had weekly I mean, Eric, my dad actually did the construction.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:08:50]:

Zimmerman remodeling construction. Been around since, 1950. So he's so you can imagine the in fighting he and I are having the entire project. He actually ended up Firing his, like, manager of the project hired Eric to be his on-site manager because Eric knows all, like, the engineering stuff of the the brewing equipment, the piping, all that kind of stuff. So Eric's, like, helping me get the brewery open while helping my dad get the construction done, And, you know, we're weekly meetings, like, complete catastrophes at every turn. And it did it just it's Comic call. It could be a movie, almost. And and I'm sure that every other startup has similar stories like this.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:09:30]:

It's just the one I lived through, so I'm telling it how it was.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:33]:

I I was curious just how that transpired. Because it yeah. I'm as a consumer, a patron, if you will, of Of Saucy Brew Works. I I really only got to see the the finished product. So

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:09:44]:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, it's all easy. Yeah. Perfect. It was cake. No.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:09:49]:

It was, very the only I tell you know, I talked to Eric about my son was born, just around the time That we are getting open just before that, which other than opening this brewery is the hardest thing ever done, is be a parent. I don't know if you have any kids or not, but, I mean, there's it's very rewarding. Don't get me wrong, but it's hard. There's no manual, and I have 2 now, and they're just, They're not the same, and they're not the same as anybody else's kids, and there's nothing it's not just like the panacea of this is what you do. So you're starting a startup, you're trying to get this real estate venture off the ground, then you have, you know, a newborn that you've never dealt with before. It was it was interesting, to say the least.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:25]:

I can imagine. You have this Business model that I really love, big fan of puns, but the pub and spoke idea. Was that the vision from day 1 to have some distribution To what you're doing beyond the brewpubs themselves? Or how did that strategy kind of evolve? And if you could just kind of lay out how you think about pub and spoke?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:10:45]:

Yeah. Absolutely. It it actually was part of the plan day 1. We filed a couple of of breweries, basically, in In California, we really love their model, and they kind of this is you know, they did it, so we we kinda took it from them. But there's there's always been, from day 1, the intention of, Pub production, selling into grocery restaurants, etcetera. And then eventually, you know, more pubs to sell, like, sell beer to yourself. Selling beer to yourself is, you know, 6 times more profitable than selling beer to a grocery store. But the grocery store does the volume in which it helps you pay for all the, know, fancy equipment.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:11:19]:

Right? So it's it's very symbiotic, the relationship. It takes a while to pay for the production facility to to make to make cash, Actual cash on on that humongous investment that you're putting in place, not only from a equipment perspective, from human talent perspective. We got a bunch of scientists back there. We got a bunch of former, marketing and graphics people from big firms that have, you know, Very respectful resumes that are not ground level people that it, you know, it costs a lot of money to to kinda do what we're doing. You know, one of the splashes that I'm sure everybody scratches their head to every day that's that's never met me is that, I can't believe that the crappy response with Cleveland Cavaliers. What the hell are they thinking? And my thinking on that was was literally as it relates to pub pub and spoke because that helped us get into Giant Eagle the 1st year we were in business. Unheard of. That doesn't happen.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:12:10]:

And, you know, I give Cavs a lot of credit that if it wasn't for them, year 1, we would have never been in the business, The grocery business. And and that's helped us a lot. So, yeah, it's it's an expensive partnership, but it's it's a good one. They they really treat us well. And you and you go into those things thinking, man, these guys are huge. And, you know, mister Gilbert and all, they're like, man, they can really crush us, but that's the last thing they're thinking about. They want all their partners to succeed, which was which was fantastic. So, you know, that's kinda the method to the madness.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:12:39]:

I I think, you know, some people definitely view us as crazy. And we are a little bit, but, the they'll we'll continue to open pubs. We're looking at tons of opportunities as we speak. It's a long winded answer to your question, but, yeah, it's always been part of the design.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:53]:

Yeah. And the other thing that I've noted that Feels very intentional about what you're doing is this kind of community oriented approach to to just how you build these facilities and and continue to work with them over time. And, yeah, I'd love to just kinda do a deeper dive on on how you've thought about That approach and, as you think about, you know, geographic expansion, I know there's potentially opportunities in Detroit and and Charlotte, and How you're thinking about intentionality of those and and and building community?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:13:25]:

Yeah. So, I was lucky both of my, I grew up in a very small town called Bellevue, Ohio, 85 100 people. I don't think the population has changed since my dad was a kid. I was lucky that, both my grandmother And my grandfather were named Citizens of the Year in Bellevue, Ohio for their for their philanthropy. And my largest investor, Paul Hubbard, who's actually resides in California, but has a house in Lakeside that my dad built. Right? You can see the insetion.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:51]:

That's what's going on here.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:13:53]:

He impressed upon us when he helped seed the company, but I'm I'm never gonna get in your guys' business on a daily basis. If you ever need me For advice, whatever, I'm always here. The one thing you gotta get right is culture. And he was more intentional about culture internally with the people here Because internally, the culture makes a lot of difference externally to, you know, a customer. And it it really has resonated with us. So we really wanted to be You know, we make mistakes every day. Don't get me wrong. We're not perfect.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:14:22]:

No one is. But we really intentionally wanted to be, you know, good stewards of not only Internally, our our people, but also the community that we're in, because it it tends to it's 1 plus 1 equals 4 or 5, it's not 2. And so we've seen that come back through and through. We just won small business of the year award for for Ohio City Inc for all the philanthropic things we did during during the pandemic. When when people were hurting the most, we, the as an entire company, we just really stepped up, whether it'd be the tip jar That we raised, you know, 150 plus $1,000 for all the servers and bartenders and cooks in Cleveland. Not just our own, everybody in Cleveland Sign up. There's over a 1000 people that signed up. We did penny beers for all the first responders, so penny 6 packs.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:15:09]:

A bunch of other we did we serve 35,000 meals to the Cleveland Clinic. You know, a bunch of different things that that we did when it was tough. It wasn't easy street getting through this thing. There were definitely nights where I said to myself, I don't know that we're gonna make it. What the hell am I gonna do next? And I tried to to not outwardly let Anyone know that I thought that in in in our, you know, ranks in the company. But every single person, except one who's no longer with us, Did everything in their power internally and externally to make sure that we made it through. And people that our graphic designer was making pizzas. I was filling crawlers.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:15:46]:

Our, you know, head of marketing is making pizzas and filling in everybody was doing anything they possibly could just to make sure that this thing worked. And for a while, even though COVID sucked, it was very rewarding. It was an awesome team building experience. I think we're better for Actually going through that together and kinda seeing where everybody's stripes lie because it was it was brutal for everybody, and and and we we were not, you know, excluded from that. So as I look into other markets, I I first and foremost have a real estate bent on everything. And Matt Schubeck, my COO, who actually used to work for me, at at my hedge fund, and I have our, quote, unquote, proprietary algorithm that we use to decide what that is. And it is it's not overly sophisticated, so don't so don't think that it is. But it but it generally populates, you know, where we should be growing.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:16:35]:

So we we pick those locations and then we gotta find good partners. Some sometimes, like our partnership in Charlotte is with GBX Group, Who, is right down the street here in Cleveland. And they they specialize in saving historic assets through conservation easements. And some of them are just Through friends of friends that are, you know, real estate owners. In the case of Detroit, you know, obviously, mister Gilbert owns Bedrock and he owns the Cavs. So we already had a relationship with those guys, who, by the way, treat us great as well. You know, during that whole thing, they just They were just sure that we listen, guys. We don't we don't care about you making any money.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:17:11]:

Right? We just want you to stay open. We want you to get open. You don't need to pay us rent, that kind of thing. So they were very Helpful, forgiving, etcetera. So I I shutter at some of the negative press some of those guys get sometimes because they do they do a lot of good things, but We'll do continue to do that. I believe that to go into a market, if it was 10 years ago, I could be a regional brewery and I could ship beer via distributor soup to any market I wanted to. You know? The fat heads and stuff of the world when when they were born back then. Now you you can't do that.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:17:38]:

It it it's way too competitive. We have there's almost 9,000 breweries, so you need to have a local presence as from a pub perspective in these communities. You need to be involved in the community. You have to have people that live in the community. You have to give back to the community, and you gotta be feel part of it so that you're actually local. Once that happens and if that works, then after that, we'll come back And we'll distribute after that with with distribution partners, you know, around the country. If it never gets to that, well, we're happy with putting, you know, pubs in good real estate locations in in growing cities for the most part. For better or for worse, you know, cities like Nashville, Charlotte, etcetera, just way easier business environment than Cleveland.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:18:17]:

So, you know, that's super you know, population growth and everything else helps solve a lot of problems.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:22]:

Just kind of like widening the the aperture a bit and turning The lens towards the future here. Building on the geographic stuff, but I know you're also kind of, you know, thinking through Product expansion beyond beer.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:18:37]:

How you

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:37]:

kind of think about those opportunities, you know, relative to the geographic expansion and and just kind of weighing the The opportunities and and direction you wanna take Saucy Brew Works going forward.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:18:48]:

Yeah. So we think of ourselves as what we're trying to we're trying to create a lifestyle brand. We Sell beer, we've won awards for selling beer. We sell pizza, we've won awards for pizza. We're a marketing company. We're, obviously out there all the time, and that's, intentional. And and inside of that whole complex, we're thinking about other other ways to, You know, have our clients enjoy our brand, our our products. So we're constantly thinking whether it's, you know, different categories of beer, whether it's In different locations, is there elevated food or not? Whether it's completely different verticals like coffee business we started.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:19:27]:

We're thinking about that every day. We're doing it every day, and there'll be some Some more announcements. Yeah. You know, probably before the end of this year. One of the main drivers of what we're doing, if if you, I'm sure I've noticed through Start Engine, we're raising capital, via crowdfunding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:19:43]:

Regulation CF crowdfunding. So it can be unaccredited investors as low as as low as $100 invested. We're on a campaign right now to raise 3,900,000. I I tell our marketing people, I would rather us raise $100 at a time, so we have 39,000 new customers. We can ship beer to 40 2 states right now. We can ship swag and stuff like that, obviously, anywhere you want to. So it's it it when you get these people that have not only invested in in your brand and own part of your company, which this isn't charity. They actually own part of the company.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:20:14]:

It's very different than Indiegogo or whatever. It resonates. It's powerful. It's you've got customers that are backing you in in in multiple locations. I get requests for real estate and building 1 in just about every state in the country now from all of our investors. Really need one of these in our neighborhood, which is great. I love I love getting that from them. I don't, I respond to almost every one of them that I can, and I'm happy that they're thinking about us, but it's very intentional.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:20:39]:

The capital, we need obviously to expand. But expanding the customer base is, I think, just as important, and people that are, you know, enjoying and loving the brand.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:48]:

Yeah. No. That alignment of of owners and And customers is a really powerful one, ultimately. I think it's a really cool exercise that you're doing with crowdfunding. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was how you think about competition and differentiation in the space, especially with just this like proliferation of, You know, brewing and craft brewing specifically, and in particular here in Ohio with the history of an impact of beer and I even just here in Ohio City, our real deep kind of history. And I think it's you know, we're one of the top states for just brewing overall, for craft brewing, bringing in Tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars, the state economy. How you think about differentiation? I think you've kind of touched on a few of those things.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:21:33]:

Yeah, I think I've touched on a bunch of them, but Again, for us, it starts with culture internally. I don't know very many companies. I used way back in the day, I worked for KeyBank. I worked for Credit Suisse in New York. I work for Mass Financial in in Boston. So, you know, multi 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of companies. Never once did I have all my insurance paid 100%. Well, we do That's Aussie.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:21:55]:

An employee that's full time comes in and gets 3 weeks vacation immediately. They get added a 4th, a 5th, and a 6th. If they're here 10 years, they get a 6 months sabbatical. They get free beer, free food. You know, there's a bunch of stuff. Right? So we're we're intentionally trying to Attract talent. And sometimes we overpay a little bit versus what the market says you're supposed to pay people. But It it always adds up if you're you're investing in them.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:22:23]:

One of the pieces we think about is education, which I don't think we've done a good enough job to this point, but we're starting to Do a much better job in in focusing on, you know, what just like, you know, Goldman Sachs, you can get an MBA from Goldman, and Goldman Sachs will pay for it, and they and they don't You don't even have an obligation to go back and work at Goldman Sachs. They wanna do better for the even though they're the big bad guys on Wall Street, they they wanna do better for for the country. And a lot of times, those MBAs go work

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:47]:

for other places, and that's fine.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:22:49]:

So we kinda think about it that way a little bit. I think every brewery has their own little Niche slash the way they do business, I think ours is a little different than everybody else's. You know, with with the pub and spoke that you spoke about, with the basically marketing company that we run. And I think that, you know, some of our key employees, their experience from other industries is just hard to measure, You know, couple on the Wall Street guys, a couple, people that work with one of the biggest ad agencies in the country, you know, somebody that work for the Cleveland Cavaliers, which is Very copacetic. That wasn't we we we didn't get in trouble for that. We have some spot on. You know? So, I mean, I'm I'm meandering a little bit because I think a lot of it comes back getting the people and the culture right. And, of course, you know, we have the science guys that know how to make great beer, but we also there's a business folks that, you know, on the business side, everybody's paying attention to numbers, and we have goals for all of our managers, for our brewers, and, you know, margins they need to hit, and and so on and so forth.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:23:48]:

So, You know, it's a business at the end of the day. It's not a hobby.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:52]:

You know, sometimes a person can make the best beer in the world, but if you can't run a business, it's not gonna be around long. So, you know, we we pay equal attention to to both sides of those things. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. More at a at a kinda macro level, you know, one of the The trends in it. I see it kind of across all the industries, but I think Jim Barksdale is the one who famously said that there's like only 2 ways to make money, Bundling and unbundling. And I feel like in the, specifically within the beer industry, we kinda had this proliferation of Of craft beer and and now maybe kind of a consolidation of those brands by the behemoths in the space. You know, you mentioned kind of the vision of, You know, ultimately being a lifestyle brand and how you think maybe about exit strategies Or things of that nature, if that's even on the radar or compatible with the idea of executing on building out the lifestyle brand idea.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:24:50]:

I get asked this question quite a bit. I I would say, like, we're we're not building a company to sell it. You know, I plan on operating this for a long time. The exit strategy for, you know, current investors or that would like to make money or cash out and not hold on to this forever, I think we'll be through a, dividends and b, you know, buying shareholders out and stuff like that over time. You know, if somebody writes a stupid check, am I gonna not listen? No. I mean, I I again, I have fiduciary duty, but it's not something I think about on a daily basis. I actually am more on the offense. I've been thinking about consolidating myself rather than the up the other way around.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:25:31]:

I think you always talk to people in the industry and listen and stuff like that, and you'd be foolish not to, but it's not at the forefront of how we've run our business every day. I it it really I don't even think about to be honest. I just think about how we're

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:43]:

gonna drive value for our employees, our investors, and our customers every day. Yeah. No. I think that that makes a lot of sense. What of all the initiatives that you're working on right now that that you feel most excited about? And with that, what I I wanna get at is Just like how you think about innovation in in this space. As this industry that is, like, as old as time and, you know, humans have been drinking for Forever. Like how you think about innovating in this space?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:26:12]:

Well, it's funny, this is a little bit out of my sweet spot, but we just were published An article and I posted on LinkedIn, you could check out about a yeast called Lechancia thermo tolerance. And it's this As this yeast, it's it's creating fermentation without bacteria. And it's creating awesome, very mellow, sour beers. There's all kinds of yeasts everywhere we we we look, but not many of them make good beer. And so Eric and his team is doing a lot with Couple of of scientists actually in Indiana around that. So they're doing a lot of, you'll you'll start to we've already had some of them out recently, then they taste beautiful. But, you know, some of those sours are So overpowering. They're hard to drink, but just sip.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:26:53]:

These are just very, you know, crushable really at the end of the day. So in the brewery space, that's pretty fun. I, again, have nothing to do with that other than drinking it. The innovation side, The the brewers are always innovating and trying to innovate on the liquid side of it. I think there's a lot of room for it's almost like the construction industry. Tree. It it it like it's a little bit behind its time in just technical, like innovation, tech in general. And how do you apply tech to this business? Right? So we're looking at a lot of stuff as it relates to that.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:27:27]:

Tech and data and, you know, how do these big companies run themselves? How do they think about how they run their business every day. So we're trying to mimic some of the things they do. So there's a bunch of initiatives around that. Just becoming more efficient, using our data more efficiently. It's a daily thing we think about. Still has a ton of room for improvement. You know, once you start harvesting some of that stuff at an efficient level like that, you know, it's just like crowdfunding. The folks that invest in you are tentative tend to buy more often.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:27:53]:

Well, if your data is good, those folks that you're targeting tend to buy more often. Right.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:57]:

So A

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:27:58]:

lot of things that big companies are thinking about, we are as well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:01]:

I would be remiss, I think, if we if we didn't actually talk about beer for a sec here As the crux of and spirit of what it is that you're actually doing. So just kind of basics here. Like What is your favorite beer that you guys are are putting out there?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:28:19]:

My favorite beer is Love You Buy, which is a hazy imperial IPA. I, spent 6 years in Boston and 2 years in Manhattan, and I a lot of time in Vermont, New Hampshire, and everything else. And The East Coast makes amazing hazy IPAs, and so I kinda a little bit I didn't make Eric

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:37]:

do it. I don't make him do anything, but

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:28:39]:

Got it. You know? Give me this one. Now he makes he makes really good ones. We've got a bunch of them actually right now. So that's my favorite beer go to. I mean, he has a bunch of them that come out. I'm like, Oh, man. Maybe this is taking it off its perch, but they're not, like, in our core lineup.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:28:51]:

So I'm always reverting back to Love You Buy. It's 8%, so you gotta kinda watch if you have a few of them yourself.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:57]:

For sure.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:28:58]:

But,

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:59]:

Yeah. I'm a big fan of the the b f f a. Yes. It's really good. One thing that I have noticed, and I'd love to get the inside scoop on this is, you know, you guys have fun names. Right. Where do those come from? What is the process for for putting those together?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:29:15]:

Those are all in Eric's maniacal crazy brain. He has a like, he literally has a notebook, then he has, like, a 180 names on. And then when it strikes him as this style fits that name, this is kinda And a lot of them are like, lines from songs, or, you know, lines from movies, and just snippets of it, or whatever. There's been very few names that he less than 5 that he has a name. And he protects it like it's a child. He will not let anybody encroach upon it. He shutters at anybody giving his suggestions. He makes fun of them.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:29:52]:

And it's just it's a big joke internally. Eric has to name De Beers. And, you know, he happens to be very good at it. I'm not taking that away from him, but it's it's It's this thing internally that it's become where a new employer will start to, like, well, wait. What about an Eric Wheeler? They might

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:08]:

be kidding me.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:30:09]:

Hasn't anybody told them? I named the beers. So I don't know. It it it's all him. He's a creative dude. He's a musician too. So he's Now his list sometimes comes up with names that are not ready for market. And so there's a there's a panel of us that if it's not ready for market, it doesn't hit the mark. You know, you kinda learn that the hard way.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:30:28]:

But if people turn on you pretty quick, you can't can't have controversial things out there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:33]:

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's some there's some Checks and balance in the creative process.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:30:38]:

For sure. For sure. Which my filter is way less I'm very lenient compared to, like, our graphics and marketing people. Like, if if it were just up to me, we'd have some crazy ass shit out there. And they both look at us like, you guys. I mean, seriously. I don't like, you're 40 year old man. Like, are you gonna grow up? Well, no.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:30:56]:

Probably not.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:57]:

You know? So we get our hands slapped sometimes. Yeah. That's fun, though. You you guys are are clearly having a good time.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:31:05]:

Yeah. We do. Yeah. For the most part.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:07]:

For the most part. I think just kind of building on that, one of the things that I I think has been very cool just as a A citizen here in Ohio City is the development of the lot, kind of next to the brew pub. I'd love if you could just kind of Expand on on that story and the vision for for that. And I know one of the things that that you guys are doing that is maybe a little different is, like, thinking about Space and utilization of that space in different ways than maybe how they're like typically used.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:31:35]:

Yeah. So the Vibe Garden, as we call it, the Cleveland Vibrator Company used to make industrial sized vibrators for, you know, stone quarries and stuff like that. They still are in business. They just moved because they had a valuable piece of land and probably needed some more space. It was born out of the pandemic because we had a very small patio and where the hell are we gonna put people? And we stare at that every day, and it and the Snaveleys bought it from the Vibayor company, and they put development plans on hold just of the pandemic and everything else. And I looked at and at the time, it's like a graveyard. I mean, there's stuff everywhere. You know, I called Pete up and said, hey.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:32:11]:

We wanna turn this into our our our dual beer garden, we'll lease it from you. I mean, you guys aren't using it, you might as well get some cash in the door. Great idea. Okay. Cool. So in the matter of 9 days, literally Yeah. Myself, Eric Schuby, who's Matt Schubec, my dad, his contractors. We cleaned it up, leveled it out, put all the light posts and all the power and everything you can imagine it's over there, and had it up and running in in 9 days.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:32:35]:

It costs $100 to do, which obviously in a in an environment where you're conserving cash because of COVID isn't comfortable. I could have been wrong about it, But it's it's doing extremely well. We don't own it. The Stable still own it. Could we own it someday? I don't know. Maybe. I hope. I would love to have something like that forever.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:32:55]:

But we'll see. Until then, we'll just, keep leasing it from them on a year to year basis until they're either ready to, you know, develop it or sell it. But the whole thought process was, a, you're outside, b, the tables were at least 10 foot apart. C, we drew an architectural drawing so that legally, they were 10 feet apart and submitted that to the city. And, Dee, we we launched an app. And so you could you wouldn't have to, you know, congregate with much people. You could sit at your table with your group, And you order your food off and beers off the app, and it would get delivered to your table. The app was off the shelf, didn't cost us much.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:33:28]:

It's clunky, But it does what it needs to do to to do what I really want to do is, you know, 500 to $1,000,000, which we're not gonna spend on an app. So it does what it needs to do and it gets food to where it needs to go. People still use it. People still download it. I think they'd use it a little less now because they're not afraid of being around people, but It was a huge benefit and buffer for us, you know, during the pandemic to to be able to have, you know, sometimes 48 tables full of people outside.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:54]:

Yeah. No. I can imagine it was quite a a valuable option for for y'all to to have rolled out.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:34:00]:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:02]:

So I wanna kinda just build on the Cleveland focus for a moment. You know, one of the things we do on the show is, we're Pulling together a collage, not necessarily of people's favorite things in Cleveland, but of hidden gems and things that other people may not know about. And so I I pose this question to you.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:34:24]:

I don't know if everybody knows about I love the Raleigh Inn over by the Christmas 3 story house, I don't know if everybody knows about that

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:30]:

or not. Happen.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:34:31]:

This is great. You have it? Oh, it's amazing. So this is like, I think 190 8 it opened or Something like that. Check me on my facts, but it it was a long time, more than a 100 years ago. It's this little pub in the neighborhood, right across the street from the Christmas story house, And they serve great craft beer. Usually, they have ours on tap, which is a add a bonus, but they have great bar food. And you just you go in there and you, Man, this is a great feeling place. I don't know why.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:34:58]:

And it's just because it's been there forever, I think. So that's one for sure. Another one I love that we go to lunch to all the time is Danny's Deli. Over on 17th East 17th Street. Opened in 1978. And I would call it, I guess, a direct competitor slimants. You know, so the big deli sandwiches or whatever. And the owners and and the people in the kitchen are, like, wide open to that Space and and they're a bunch of characters.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:35:22]:

It's hilarious. It's like a Seinfeld episode while you're eating. I don't know if you've ever have you ever been there?

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:27]:

I haven't, but I you've sold me already.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:35:30]:

Yeah. You gotta check that out. Another one I liked, it a little gem, like, over in the, is Parkview Tavern.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:36]:

I have the Parkview. Yeah.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:35:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't have to explain that one to you. But Raleigh, it feels a lot like that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:42]:

But for our dozens of listeners here, what what what about Parkview?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:35:46]:

It's over in, you know, the hugely the, Battery Park neighborhood that's just exploded over the last decade. But it's one of the old relics that still exists on the corner over there. And it's, again, really good bar food, and they got great craft beer, which is you'll see as a theme for me. And we do you know, I can't eat it saucy every day. You know, I get as much as I love it, you know, variety is the spice of life. Right? So we have all these little gems we go to, and that's one of them. And we often see a lot of the same people at all these places and having a pint at lunch. And, it's just it's I don't know.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:36:21]:

It's a great feeling, Cleveland Place.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:23]:

Yeah. It very I don't know how much is.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:36:25]:

I don't know if you were, like, specific thinking restaurants and bars or not, but that's just one of

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:29]:

my Yeah. No. That It's really an eclectic collage at this point. I'm gonna have to pull it together at some point and publish it, but it's That's awesome. It's actually really cool.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:36:39]:

That's that's a really good idea.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:41]:

Perfect. Well, Brent, I I really appreciate you coming on and and sharing the story of Of Saucy Brew Works. And as much as I have enjoyed, just go on over the last few years. So really appreciate it. Excited about what you guys are doing. And thank you for for coming on.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:36:56]:

Yeah, man. Thank you very much. Stay in touch. Anything we can do to help with your startup, happy to do so. I don't know what that would be, but you never know.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:03]:

Yeah. Folks have anything they wanna follow-up with you about or, you know, reach out. What's the what's the best way for them to to do so?

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:37:09]:

Probably LinkedIn, I would say. And then if if the topic resonates, I I'm almost always answer as long as it's a real person, like, with a real question and it's not just somebody trying to sell me something. And then from there, I generally go go to email and and text and stuff like that after that. But I think LinkedIn is probably the best person.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:27]:

Perfect. Well, thank you again.

Brent Zimmerman (Saucy Brew Works) [00:37:29]:

Thank you, Jeff.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:31]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an Mail to Jeffrey at lay of the land dot f m or find us on Twitter at podlay of the land or at sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make Good guest for our show. Please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show.