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Rick Gehring joins me this week to discuss starting

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a craft brewery on a shoestring. This

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is beer smith podcast number 282

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is beer smith podcast number 282

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and it's early june 2023

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Rick gehring joins me this week to discuss starting

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a craft brewery on a shoestring

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And now let's jump into this week's

1:41

episode Today

1:43

in the show I welcome rick gehring rick is

1:45

head brewer at walnut river brewing west of wichita, kansas And

1:47

today rick's going

1:49

to share the unusual path. He took to building his brewery

1:52

Uh, rick, it's great to have you on the show

1:54

first time guest. How are you doing? Doing well,

1:56

I appreciate

1:57

having me on

2:00

How are things out there

2:03

near Wichita, I guess? You're 30 miles west,

2:05

I think you said? We're actually east of

2:07

Wichita, but yeah, just about 30 miles. Yeah,

2:09

no, not a problem. Yeah, we

2:11

are actually pretty busy. We

2:13

are the second largest craft

2:16

brewery in Kansas. Well, I guess we

2:18

switched back and forth to a second and third. We have one of our

2:20

rivals we fanned her back and

2:23

forth with, but yeah,

2:25

we are definitely busy this time of year.

2:27

That's fantastic. I think you mentioned

2:29

you started it up professionally about 10 years

2:32

ago, right?

2:33

Yeah, sure did. We opened our doors

2:36

in July of 2013.

2:39

That's awesome. And well,

2:41

can you tell us a little about your background and how you got started

2:43

brewing beer? I assume you probably did some

2:45

work at the homebrew level at some point?

2:48

Oh, absolutely.

2:50

I actually started back in

2:53

early nineties as a homebrewer. I

2:56

was in the IT field, kind of

2:58

bored with my career and

3:00

it was just kind of a fun hobby to get into. Of course,

3:03

I mean, beer is great anyway, but

3:06

I started there, did a couple

3:08

of homebrew kits, moved on to all

3:10

brain brewing pretty quickly.

3:14

Then really about

3:16

probably 25 years worth

3:18

of home brewing under

3:21

my belt. And along

3:24

the way, my wife was like,

3:25

you know, you seem to love this so much. You really don't

3:28

like your IT stuff anymore. So why

3:30

don't you look into opening a brewery?

3:33

Yeah, I was gonna ask, when

3:35

and how did you decide to do that? I mean, I

3:37

assume you were doing some other work.

3:40

You said IT?

3:41

Yes, yeah. I was like corporate

3:43

IT, say for just about 20 years. And

3:47

yeah, there's only so many times

3:49

you can fix a network or

3:51

reset a password before you get really bored.

3:54

Well, you took some

3:56

risks when you switched over.

3:59

from what I understand, right?

4:02

You decided to go all

4:04

in when you quit your

4:06

job.

4:07

Yeah, sure did.

4:11

With my wife's encouragement, of course, she's

4:14

the first person to keep happy.

4:17

We decided to take the plunge,

4:20

looked high and low for a

4:22

good place to do it. Of course, I'm

4:24

originally from Wichita,

4:26

so we looked there first.

4:28

But the issue was that the

4:31

prices of buildings and land were

4:33

really high. Water

4:35

quality in Wichita is really not that

4:37

great for brewing, you have to do a lot of fancy

4:39

stuff to it. So we

4:41

were looking in areas that

4:44

were close to El Dorado

4:46

and found that the

4:48

water quality up here was tremendous

4:51

and the price of real estate

4:53

was almost nothing really. And the

4:55

city was hungry for a new business. So we

4:59

bought an old building that the roof

5:02

was about ready to collapse on. And

5:05

to do that, we ended up selling our house so we

5:07

could divert

5:09

our mortgage payment we use on the house

5:11

into

5:12

fixing the building. Wow,

5:13

that's amazing. And from

5:16

what I understand, you actually lived in the building too,

5:18

right?

5:19

Yeah, we sure did. There was

5:21

a small apartment on the first floor of the building

5:24

and we decided to expand

5:26

it a little bit and move in.

5:29

So we lived in that, I

5:31

think we ended up with about an 800 square foot apartment.

5:33

Wow. And yeah,

5:36

it was myself, my wife, and

5:38

our two toddlers that we had at the

5:40

time. Oh my goodness.

5:43

Sounds challenging. And then

5:46

it took you a couple of years, I think, right? To get

5:48

the building fixed up to the point where you could actually

5:50

start a brewery.

5:52

Yeah, I wanna say it took

5:55

me right about five years

5:57

worth of say, diverting my mortgage payment into

5:59

it. to get it all fixed up

6:02

at about a two and a half year mark. And

6:04

my wife had enough of the small apartment. So

6:07

we had to buy a house under

6:10

her request. Okay. Well,

6:12

that's good.

6:13

Yeah, yeah. But

6:16

you were running a shop out of the building

6:18

too. I think she was, right?

6:20

Yeah. So we have our

6:22

buildings about 6,000 square feet or so,

6:25

but

6:27

with all that empty space, once we got everything

6:29

fixed up, my wife's kind of like, you know, we could

6:32

use that space and my mom and

6:35

I could make a flea market. They

6:37

just had a good time doing that on the weekends

6:39

that helped bring in a little

6:41

bit extra money.

6:43

And yeah, so they eventually

6:45

took over pretty much all the building. We

6:48

had an old alleyway between us

6:50

and the next building over

6:52

that was turned into the brewery at

6:54

the end.

6:56

And this all happened about 10 years ago and

6:58

you were, let's say at some point you started

7:00

actually getting serious about

7:02

buying the equipment and

7:05

putting the brewery up.

7:07

And from what I understand, you did it with a very small pile

7:09

of cash, right?

7:10

Yeah, very small.

7:12

Say all my money really went into the building. So

7:15

whenever I finally found a couple of

7:18

business partners to work with,

7:20

we pulled what cash we had, which

7:22

turned out to be about $50,000. And

7:26

the only thing we bought new

7:28

with that was the brew system itself.

7:30

And that was a two barrel system

7:34

that was about 35,000, I

7:36

think of that 50.

7:37

So we had $15,000 to build the rest of the brewery with.

7:41

That's amazing. And so you started

7:44

with a two barrel brew system. How

7:46

much other equipment, I mean, how many fermenters and so on

7:48

did you start with?

7:50

We started with two of the

7:52

two barrel fermenters that came with.

7:53

We

7:56

took up the plunge with that and

7:58

actually, I think within the first.

7:59

month of being open we started supplying

8:02

a local bar with with kegs and

8:05

soon discovered that the two barrel fermenters

8:07

were not big enough. So

8:09

with just a couple weeks after that we

8:12

ended up buying actually our first

8:14

bank loan that

8:15

we did bought a seven

8:17

barrel fermenter so we could triple batch into that

8:20

one. Wow and doing triple

8:22

batches has got to be a challenge right in one day

8:24

it's a long brew day.

8:25

It is a long brew day. We

8:27

got pretty good at it like I was able to do three batches

8:31

in about 11 hours

8:32

but at that time we

8:34

were I was still working full-time believe

8:36

or not to try to cover the bills. So you

8:39

worked full-time the whole time you

8:41

were

8:42

renovating I assume too right?

8:44

Yes absolutely. Yeah

8:46

and then when did you finally quit your

8:48

job? Wow let's

8:50

see it would have been probably about

8:53

three years into the brewery. Wow.

8:56

Yeah a lot of long weeks. So

8:59

what were you brewing on the weekend then? Yep

9:01

yep I come in on Saturday and brew three

9:04

batches on Sundays it

9:06

was usually kegging and transferring

9:09

and throughout the week it was just babysitting.

9:12

So initially were you running primarily

9:14

as a brew pub? Were you did you have basically

9:17

a tap room or something?

9:19

Well Kansas is a little weird on

9:21

their alcohol laws. Okay. And

9:24

as a microbrewery

9:27

here in Kansas we just got this law changed

9:29

actually just this year but

9:33

at least where we're located at you had to

9:35

sell at least 30% of

9:37

your everything had to be in food

9:40

if you wanted to be able to sell a pint of

9:42

beer across the bar. Okay.

9:44

But strangely we could give the beer away

9:47

so we could sit there and hand

9:49

out tasters

9:50

and then we could sell for hours a beer to

9:52

go. That was

9:53

how we did our first two and a half years essentially.

9:56

Interesting so you didn't have a

9:59

restaurant I guess.

9:59

So you just had, you literally,

10:02

you literally gave the beer away at the tap room

10:04

and then, uh, and then sold growlers to go.

10:06

Yep. That was the way we worked for the world

10:09

business model.

10:10

Yeah.

10:13

It wasn't what I had really expected

10:15

or desired, but it was the way it worked for the,

10:17

for the beginning. So that was, uh, you did that

10:19

for three years and then eventually did you open up and,

10:22

uh, and, um,

10:23

uh, create a restaurant, I guess, or what?

10:26

Oh, we did. I did a couple of different things.

10:28

So our demand grew enough where

10:31

we decided to go ahead and take out

10:33

an SBA loan

10:34

and we upgraded from a two barrel

10:36

system to a 30 barrel. Oh, wow.

10:39

Yeah. It was a, it was a huge jump,

10:42

but at that time we also added in a canning

10:44

line. Um,

10:46

we bought, I think at the beginning we started with,

10:49

uh, five 30 barrel fermenters,

10:52

um, with statewide

10:54

with our distribution.

10:56

Um, but at

10:58

that time we also opened up a tap room

11:01

in the brewery and

11:02

then

11:03

in 2018, we

11:06

also opened up a restaurant in Wichita

11:08

as well. That was a

11:11

big adventure for sure. Nice. Uh,

11:13

so yeah, so quite a, quite a bit of change in

11:15

a short number of years. I do want to go back

11:17

to the beginning though, because I was kind of interested. Um,

11:19

so obviously you spent most of your initial

11:22

cash on brewing equipment and, uh,

11:24

and keeping the building from falling down.

11:27

But what, what about the hundreds of

11:29

other things needed to get it up and running? I mean, how did

11:31

you get through all the, you know, usually,

11:33

uh, most of the people I talked to say that

11:36

they need 50 to a hundred percent over their budget

11:38

just to get up and running, uh,

11:41

because of all the things that come up with, you know,

11:43

code and, and, and fire

11:46

and, and all these other regulations that

11:48

put things in place. Oh,

11:50

you're not lying there.

11:53

Yeah. It was a lot of negotiation.

11:56

Luckily, at least with the city on the code

11:58

side, they were very forgiving.

11:59

They were very hungry for new businesses.

12:02

They gave us a lot of tax breaks. We

12:05

had

12:06

some grants available to us as well.

12:08

We were in their downtown revitalization

12:11

area. So they were, yeah.

12:13

So we got a little bit of grant

12:15

money as well. But

12:18

still, there are always cost overruns. You

12:20

just don't expect things.

12:23

You know, like we discovered, the sewer

12:25

line in the building was collapsed. So that had to be dug

12:28

up by hand. And stuff

12:30

like that. But you know,

12:31

we were gluttons for punishment. So on

12:33

a Sunday, we got a concrete

12:36

cutter and

12:37

did the work ourselves.

12:38

Amazing.

12:40

And the other interesting thing about your story,

12:42

I think, was that you told me you built

12:44

a lot of equipment from scratch yourself, which

12:47

is kind of interesting.

12:48

Can you give us a few examples of that?

12:51

Oh, absolutely. One

12:53

of the callbacks to being a home brewer is

12:55

you always want to be tinkering with stuff. At least

12:58

I always really enjoyed that aspect, trying

13:00

to

13:01

eke out efficiencies where you can

13:03

and try to get different techniques and equipment.

13:06

So in

13:07

my heart, it was always just joy of building

13:09

things.

13:11

So we did the same thing at the brewery. It

13:13

was very evident. So for

13:16

instance, the glycol chiller

13:18

reuse to cool down the fermenters was

13:20

built out of a Coleman

13:22

cooler and an air conditioning unit.

13:24

And yeah,

13:27

strangely enough, one of my friends, he's an engineer

13:30

and his hobby is designing cooling systems.

13:35

It was a little weird, but it worked out

13:37

in our favor. So he was able to design everything

13:39

from the heat loads and put it, you know, and

13:41

we built it and it worked great. He designed

13:43

this glycol chiller off

13:46

of an air conditioner that kept, I guess, your

13:48

first three fermenters going? Yep,

13:50

actually, we still have it. It works great. By

13:54

the time we retired it,

13:56

it was running two

13:58

seven barrel fermenters.

13:59

the three, two barrels and it was doing

14:02

great. No kidding. That's amazing.

14:04

And, um, what, give, give us some other

14:06

examples. I know you took a lot of other, uh,

14:09

uh,

14:09

shortcuts to cut costs.

14:11

Definitely. Um,

14:13

when we started, um,

14:15

putting our beer into cakes for bars, of course we

14:17

had to have a way of cleaning them.

14:19

And one of my, uh, never

14:22

earning projects seems to be designing

14:24

a building cake cleaners.

14:26

So my very first one was just a manifold

14:28

of pipes on the wall that did everything manually

14:30

and, you know, a single cake would take

14:32

me 25 minutes to clean.

14:36

But, um, when you're

14:38

at our level now and we're doing

14:40

several hundred cakes, you know, a week and

14:42

it just

14:43

doesn't work. So

14:46

we looked at commercial cake cleaners and

14:48

the ones that we really wanted, you

14:50

know, started at around $15,000 and it was like, you know,

14:54

we could do better. So, um, I

14:58

did a little bit of a

15:00

bookwork on it.

15:01

Actually went to school to do auto cats.

15:04

Well I could actually lay out piping on, on,

15:06

on a design. Um,

15:09

I learned how to weld stainless to be able

15:11

to build a frame for it. Oh, well. Uh, then,

15:14

um,

15:15

my education is actually in computer

15:17

engineering. I never really used it in my profession,

15:20

but it came in handy here

15:22

where I was able to design the control system,

15:24

do the programming for it. But,

15:26

um, yeah, in the end, I think we ended up spending

15:29

maybe $7,000 in parts and we had about

15:32

six months of my time, but we are

15:34

now on version four of a cake cleaner and it's

15:37

working great.

15:40

So, uh, so you got through this initial

15:43

startup and I assume you were profitable

15:45

at least initially, right?

15:47

Initially. Yeah. I mean, we're,

15:50

we still are for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

15:52

We're not going to, you know, retire any time soon,

15:55

but we're still having a great time doing everything.

15:57

Yeah.

15:58

But, um, so then you went through a, period,

16:00

you mentioned of, uh, you know, fairly rapid

16:02

growth. You went and got a SBA loan

16:04

and, uh, and, uh, expanded pretty

16:07

dramatically. What was that phase

16:09

like? Cause I've seen other breweries, you know, kind

16:12

of go through something similar, they go and raise a substantial

16:15

much amount of money and in some cases don't

16:17

make it. So, um, so tell

16:19

us a little bit about how, uh, how you managed

16:21

to do all that.

16:22

Sure. Um, yeah. And I've

16:25

seen the same thing, even in Kansas, so there has

16:27

been a few breweries that, uh, try to

16:30

take off more than they can chew to begin

16:32

with. And we were very aware

16:34

of that.

16:35

So our growth was well, it was fast,

16:38

I guess in terms of where we started. Uh, we

16:40

did take things pretty

16:42

methodically, so we would expand

16:45

in one area. Uh, for instance, our home markets,

16:47

Wichita. So we would

16:49

find, you know, the top 20 accounts out

16:52

there and try to get into those.

16:54

And then we all, once we're happy with that,

16:57

we move out to another 20. And

16:59

once we kind of got most of Wichita covered,

17:01

then we went to the next big town. But

17:03

you know, over a period of probably two years, we

17:06

went from just a couple of bars

17:09

to statewide. How

17:11

do you do that? I mean, how do you break into,

17:14

uh, some of these big distribution chains

17:16

that are

17:17

honestly dominated by a few large brands?

17:19

Yeah, it can be

17:21

tough. Um, well, the way

17:23

that we ended up doing it, uh, we're lucky

17:26

that at the time we really started to

17:28

distribute, um, Kansas

17:30

was really starting to explode with, with more

17:33

smaller breweries. And

17:36

our distributor network, um, actually

17:38

has a little, a little side group called

17:41

the Kansas craft Alliance. It

17:43

is kind of a collection of all

17:45

the distributors that want to deal with craft

17:48

beer.

17:49

So we actually just had a single point of contact

17:51

at the, at the craft Alliance. And

17:54

they were able to do all the negotiations

17:56

for us with all the other distributors.

18:00

So, so you were able to break

18:02

in to those very difficult markets

18:05

that way, I guess. Yeah. There's

18:08

definitely a good, a good way to get into it. There's

18:11

still a lot of tough areas, especially in Kansas.

18:14

You get into the rural

18:16

areas and craft beer is not the,

18:18

you know,

18:19

the drink of choice. Interesting.

18:22

Was, was it hard to,

18:24

to, well, I guess what

18:27

trophy to switch bottles? I mean, cause obviously originally

18:29

you were using more of a, you know, kind of a tap

18:31

room, a self distribution model, which is,

18:34

which is obviously much more profitable. What made

18:36

you decide that you wanted

18:38

to go over to,

18:40

you know, commercial distribution where you have to can

18:42

and,

18:43

and, and obviously the profit margin is much, much lower.

18:46

Yeah, they are.

18:48

Was it, was it mainly the laws

18:50

there or? Not

18:53

necessarily. We were, I guess,

18:56

expecting more of a, of a

18:58

customer following here in El Dorado

19:00

or

19:01

our projections for

19:03

what we would do in revenue through the tap room

19:06

or probably, you know,

19:08

half or twice of what we, what

19:10

we really saw. The

19:12

town really itself isn't that big. I think

19:14

we are at about 13,000 people in El Dorado. Yeah.

19:19

And even though we're still fairly close to Wichita, I mean,

19:21

it gets a short drive,

19:23

but people still aren't willing

19:25

to drive for 20 minutes to

19:27

get a beer and then then drive back. So

19:31

we decided that, you know, the best way to

19:33

make more money is to get more volume out there.

19:36

And that's the way to do that is

19:38

in cans and distribute. So

19:40

that's what you did. Yeah. So you

19:42

did eventually open a restaurant. Did you open it

19:44

in, in El Dorado or did you move it somewhere

19:47

else?

19:47

It is actually in downtown Wichita.

19:50

That is

19:51

what we consider to be our home market. We probably sell 80%

19:53

of our volume there.

19:57

So that just made the most sense to

19:59

do it. That makes sense, yeah.

20:02

Well, let's talk a little bit about beer

20:04

and brewing. What does your original

20:06

lineup of beers look like, and how did

20:08

you decide to choose those beers?

20:11

Oh, lots of market

20:13

studies. We probably spent,

20:16

before we actually opened our doors, I want to say we probably

20:18

spent two years doing test batches,

20:21

lots of tastings. We're breeding in

20:23

local homebrew clubs. Really,

20:26

anyone in the area who

20:28

is willing to come over and taste beer, give

20:30

us feedback. In

20:33

the end, we had decided to think on five

20:36

flagship beers, which included,

20:38

of course, an Irish stout, a

20:40

wheat beer. Okay, you

20:42

got a wheat beer in Kansas. We

20:44

just had, I

20:46

think, a blonde, that

20:50

we, our main beer, we thought we

20:52

were really going to take off with, was a California

20:54

common. And

20:57

we also had a couple of- A good old steam beer, huh?

20:59

Yeah, good old steam beer. You just don't see it much around

21:01

here. No.

21:03

But yeah, so we started

21:05

off with that. And surprisingly,

21:09

our steam beer just kind of

21:12

sat there. Nobody really cared for it. I

21:15

thought it was a good solid steam beer, but

21:18

yeah, nobody wanted it.

21:20

But they

21:22

loved our Irish red. That was just kind of

21:24

in the initial lineup.

21:26

And I think

21:29

that's still one of your more popular beers, right?

21:31

If not your top selling beer.

21:32

Yeah, it became our top

21:34

beer very quickly. It is

21:36

still probably 60% of our sales.

21:39

And yeah, if that is actually

21:41

our top, I think the top selling

21:44

craft beer in Kansas. That's

21:48

pretty fantastic that you went from

21:51

humble beginnings 10 years ago to have

21:53

one of the top selling craft beers.

21:56

Yeah, thanks. So how

21:59

did things evolve over-

21:59

over time. Did you bring

22:02

in some of the new trends like the IPAs?

22:06

Oh, definitely.

22:09

Of course, we're doing our best to

22:11

follow the trends. It's

22:13

a little tough for me personally. I'm very

22:16

much a traditionalist when it comes to beer styles.

22:19

Okay. But we have actually a lot

22:21

of younger guys on

22:23

our crew.

22:26

One of our other business partners is

22:28

a microbiologist. And he

22:30

is really into all these eclectic

22:33

brews. So all the

22:34

Northeast IPAs, you know, fruited

22:36

sours,

22:38

all that kind of fun stuff. And

22:41

so I kind of hand the wheel off to him when it

22:43

comes to doing

22:44

all the new interesting styles.

22:47

But if you want traditional

22:49

stuff, you know, that's still in my wheelhouse. So

22:52

what does your lineup look

22:54

like today? And how's it different from maybe

22:56

what you had 10 years ago? We

22:59

do have quite a few sours now on tap.

23:01

Our latest one is actually a plum

23:04

sour, which is quite popular

23:06

in our area.

23:09

We do, let's see, we have, I think,

23:11

currently like four IPAs on tap.

23:13

Let's

23:16

see.

23:18

That also includes a Belgian triple we have.

23:21

We have a Russian Imperial Stout.

23:24

We have one called Ridiculous,

23:26

which is kind of its own thing. It's

23:29

probably closest to like an American Strong Ale.

23:32

Yeah.

23:34

So you've got quite a broad

23:37

selection now, right? Yes,

23:40

yes. And are you selling all those through cans

23:42

or primarily on tap? We

23:45

usually do, I think right

23:47

now we have about 10 varieties in

23:50

cans out in the market. That's

23:52

pretty broad, yeah. Yeah, that's

23:55

great.

23:56

Well, you credit your local water

23:58

is a key to your success.

23:59

What does it look like and how important

24:02

is it adjusting your water to get

24:04

great beer?

24:05

Well, of course, good water is

24:08

essential for making great beer.

24:11

When we were looking at Wichita water,

24:13

pretty much every brewery

24:15

in that area had to do a lot of fancy

24:17

footwork to make it work for brewing. Usually

24:20

reverse osmosis, adding back in all

24:22

the minerals and salts you need. In

24:25

El Dorado,

24:27

the water source is completely different. It flows down

24:29

through what we call the Flint Hills, which essentially

24:32

is large open

24:33

pasture lands that

24:36

are primarily limestone.

24:39

It picks up all kinds of nice little minerals and calcium

24:42

along the way. By the time

24:44

it reaches us,

24:45

it is actually exceptionally soft water with

24:48

low sulfites and everything in it. All

24:51

we have to do to it for almost all of our

24:53

beer styles is we run it through a charcoal

24:55

filter to remove the chlorine.

24:59

It's rare that we even have to touch it.

25:01

Interesting. So you don't do a lot of water adjustment

25:04

off the base water then?

25:05

Not for most of our styles. If we're doing

25:08

things like hazy IPAs, then yeah, we do have

25:10

to go in there and tweak all the sulfite levels.

25:13

Right. That makes sense.

25:15

So how's that different than you said the

25:17

Wichita water is bad. Does it have too much

25:20

of what? I don't know. Sulfite?

25:22

The biggest

25:24

issue with that is

25:27

the reservoir for Wichita is surrounded

25:30

by agricultural land. So

25:32

all the fertilizers and everything are run off

25:34

into the lake and the lake is nice

25:37

and shallow as well. So it gets plenty of

25:39

daylight. What happens

25:41

is as soon as the weather starts warming up, you get algae

25:43

blooms and the water just

25:45

actually tastes horrible.

25:47

Interesting.

25:48

Not good. No.

25:52

So I mean you've

25:54

gone from humble beginnings now to the top

25:56

selling Kansas craft beer.

26:00

Can you tell us a little bit about your top selling

26:02

beer?

26:03

Absolutely. It

26:05

is an Irish red. It's a little non-traditional.

26:09

We've tried to enter it into a bunch

26:11

of contests, but it's just slightly out of style.

26:13

So it doesn't, it doesn't fare well for

26:16

strict judging, but it sells

26:18

incredibly well, which is of course, we want to

26:20

make our customers happy. But it

26:23

is

26:24

a fairly rich version of an Irish

26:26

red. Nice

26:30

of course, multi, very low bitterness.

26:33

If you put it together with

26:36

say, you know, your more traditional

26:38

Irish red, say a Killian, just what most

26:40

people think of it probably.

26:43

Killian seems to be pretty thin and watery

26:45

and over carbonated compared to ours, but

26:48

ours is nice, rich and multi,

26:51

low bitterness. It's very easy to

26:53

drink. You can sit there and drink multiples

26:55

of it. I mean, it's only five and a half percent.

26:58

And yeah, people love it.

27:01

That's awesome.

27:02

That's great. What's your second

27:04

top selling beer?

27:06

At the moment, it is

27:08

a Kolsch.

27:10

It kind of depends on the

27:12

season as to what our second one is. And

27:15

more of the wintertime or IPA, we have

27:17

one called a high beam IPA. It's kind of a traditional

27:19

West Coast. That one

27:21

becomes number two. Now,

27:24

the weather's warming up.

27:25

It's now gonna be our tea to rock Kolsch.

27:27

Kolsch

27:30

is a difficult

27:33

style to brew and make it perfect.

27:36

What are some of the secrets to making that work?

27:39

For us, it's making sure

27:41

that of course, you have nice clean yeast

27:44

in it. Really control your fermentation

27:46

temperatures. Do all

27:48

the standard things you need to keep your yeast

27:50

happy, which of course for us is

27:53

plenty of oxygen whenever you're transferring the work

27:56

from the kettle to the fermenter. Yeast

27:58

nutrient for sure. and

28:01

just really monitoring your yeast performance

28:04

over generations.

28:05

Luckily with

28:07

our microbiologist on staff, he can really kind

28:09

of watch that and we were able

28:12

to usually get 10 to 12 generations out

28:14

of a yeast patch before we have to get a new

28:16

one.

28:17

So it's kind of- So you do reuse your yeast obviously.

28:19

A lot of commercial brewers do obviously, but-

28:22

Yeah, yeast is actually one of the highest cost items

28:24

out there, so we

28:27

do our best to reuse that as much as possible.

28:29

Interesting, and are you using a lot

28:31

of other ingredients for,

28:33

you know, for example, when you make a colesher, are you using

28:35

German malt or how are you sourcing

28:37

your ingredients?

28:39

Most of our malt actually comes

28:41

from Canada, strangely enough. Import

28:44

malts, of course, the price of everything went so

28:46

high that we just have to

28:48

make do with what we can get at a reasonable price.

28:50

But just

28:53

the Canada-based

28:55

pilsner malts really seem to work just fine for it.

28:59

Have you jumped

29:01

on the logger train either? There's a

29:03

lot of craft breweries now that are

29:06

getting into making, you know, fine, high

29:08

grade continental loggers now.

29:10

Absolutely. We are playing

29:12

around with the Mexican logger. That seems

29:14

to be doing pretty well. We've

29:17

done a few of the test batches on it and got really great

29:20

feedback on it.

29:22

Actually, we're taking a little bit different approach,

29:25

I think, on our production side. We

29:27

do have a little bit of extra capacity, so

29:30

we are

29:31

testing the waters on doing contract brewing.

29:34

A lot of those

29:36

customers are actually wanting to do loggers because

29:38

they don't have the space for them. We're the time

29:40

to type for them.

29:42

Yeah, so we've done a couple of those

29:44

loggers so far

29:45

and it's been actually a good experience.

29:47

So interesting. So you're actually contracting

29:50

out your facility for other people to gypsy

29:53

brew, I guess then. Is that right?

29:54

That's exactly right. Interesting.

29:57

And so you

29:59

must have some excess capacity. capacity there.

30:01

Yeah, at the moment we

30:04

probably have about 40% of our capacity

30:06

still there. And we actually did that

30:08

in the beginning as part of the brewery

30:10

design. We wanted to make sure that

30:13

if we did decide to go into new markets,

30:15

whether it be a different state or whatever,

30:18

we wanted to have that capacity there

30:20

without needing to beef up

30:23

our infrastructure and spend money we didn't have

30:25

to.

30:27

So do you think the Kansas laws helped drive

30:29

you towards not

30:32

doing just a tap room and drive you into

30:34

distribution or not?

30:36

That's kind of a funny story.

30:38

In the beginning I wanted to do

30:41

just a tap room with a

30:43

restaurant along with it. So just a small brew

30:45

pub in El Dorado, Kansas. That was

30:47

my idea. My business partner

30:50

didn't want to have anything to do with a restaurant. He's

30:53

like, I don't know the food industry. The failure rate is

30:55

so high on those. I don't want to touch it. So

30:59

we had to negotiate and it was,

31:01

okay, we'll start with the production brewery,

31:03

make that work first,

31:05

and then maybe add on something or

31:07

later. And I know it took me

31:10

a few years, but I got my way.

31:12

Interesting. So you did. So

31:14

tell us a little bit about the restaurant and how that that

31:16

came out and how it's working for you. Okay.

31:19

Yeah. Um, so the restaurant,

31:22

of course, um, we got to a point with the

31:24

production brewery where we were pretty

31:27

much statewide are

31:29

our areas of growth, at least in Kansas are

31:31

not that great anymore. So we were, we were looking better,

31:34

uh, better ways to, to expand our

31:36

production. And

31:38

it was right about the time where you saw a

31:40

lot of the bigger breweries that

31:42

were multi-state starting

31:44

to either fail laps. They'd just

31:47

have a big downturn.

31:49

And I thought it was well, obviously trying

31:51

to push out into another state may

31:54

not be the best idea at this, at this time.

31:56

And our best market is local. And of course,

31:58

those are the people who know. us. So

32:01

let's look at a local restaurant. And

32:03

of course, we already knew from our tap room, the

32:06

Eldorado, you know, well, a great place to be

32:08

as a brewery may not be the best place

32:10

for a restaurant. So we

32:12

went to our hometown, Wichita,

32:15

and right in the middle of downtown where there are

32:17

several of the breweries right in the same area.

32:19

And so

32:22

we've actually

32:23

got a place in an old train station that

32:26

we're leasing and

32:29

created a restaurant right there.

32:31

It's actually really good food. We got some, some great

32:33

staff there. I'm hired a good chef.

32:37

Yeah, we have, you know, really great food, really

32:40

great beers there. For

32:42

quite a while, we actually brewed on site

32:46

and it was

32:48

a small enough space there that it was

32:50

more of a hassle because I didn't

32:52

have enough space to really work. And

32:54

what I would end up doing was throwing a hose out in the middle

32:56

of the hallway and then the staff would

32:59

trip over it. But uh,

33:01

so

33:04

you ended up, uh, you said you have closing the production

33:06

there, I guess. And he also had the water problem you mentioned

33:09

too. Yeah, yeah. We actually had

33:11

a better, a smaller Oso system there to be

33:13

able to, to, to get

33:15

water to brew. And it took

33:17

probably three or four hours to fill our two barrel

33:19

tank to brew on, on site. So

33:22

it was just more of a pain than anything else. And

33:25

turns out we could actually contract a brew to ourselves.

33:28

So we just moved our, our

33:30

two barrel system, which was still our original one,

33:32

um,

33:33

back to our main brewery and did

33:35

our batches here and just

33:38

contract brew to ourselves. And it was great. That's

33:40

good.

33:41

And the restaurant overall has been a success, I guess.

33:44

Yeah, see we've been doing really well. Um,

33:47

we had great reviews so far. Um,

33:49

say right now where we put open almost five years.

33:51

So yeah, well, it's

33:53

hard to believe that, but yeah, five years.

33:56

So how did, uh, uh, did COVID

33:58

affect you?

33:59

Obviously everybody was hit pretty

34:02

hard during COVID.

34:04

Obviously you were a production brewery at that

34:06

point, so you probably weren't hit quite as badly,

34:08

but

34:09

what were some of the adjustments you had to make?

34:11

Yeah, COVID was pretty horrible for the

34:14

restaurant. The main brewery wasn't too bad.

34:16

We just learned that we just needed a shift

34:19

from kegging beer for restaurants

34:21

and bars into more cans. I

34:24

mean, everybody was still drinking, they just did it at home. So

34:26

from the production side, it wasn't too big of a deal.

34:29

The restaurant was a whole different experience.

34:33

Nobody came in.

34:36

Essentially our income almost went to zero.

34:38

We did all of the emergency

34:41

relief funds and everything that we could

34:44

just keep the bills paid. Check

34:46

out a few loans on that one. And I

34:48

mean,

34:49

it worked out, but for about

34:51

six months, we were down to a crew

34:53

of two people and we just had to go orders.

34:56

And yeah, I mean, it was pretty

34:58

horrible.

35:01

But of course, whenever you

35:02

came back out of it,

35:05

started opening up the restaurants again, then

35:08

we still have issues trying to hire staff.

35:11

That's ongoing problem for everybody, I

35:13

think. Yeah, are you still having some staffing

35:15

issues? I know a lot of people I talked to

35:18

are having trouble getting people in.

35:20

It's definitely a challenge.

35:23

If somebody leaves, it's tough to find

35:25

somebody that really still wants to work

35:27

and does a good job, but it's

35:29

getting a lot better.

35:32

Well, you started on shoestring, and so I

35:34

wondered if you had any advice for somebody

35:36

looking to go professional, perhaps, from

35:39

a business perspective.

35:41

Absolutely. Really,

35:43

I think it's a matter of passion

35:46

and willingness

35:48

to do a lot of sacrificing. I

35:51

mean, if it's really important to you to

35:53

do brewing as a business, I

35:55

have learned that you're not gonna get rich doing

35:58

it. It is something that is...

35:59

It's a subject of love.

36:02

If you love great beer and you want to share

36:04

that passion with other people,

36:06

you know, get into it. Just

36:08

be prepared that it's gonna be a lot of long

36:11

nights,

36:12

long days, long weeks,

36:14

long years probably. And

36:16

yeah,

36:18

you're gonna have to figure out how to fix things

36:20

with no money and

36:23

just keep plugging away at it.

36:25

And I assume the challenges, yeah, from people

36:28

I've talked to, the challenges continue because even if you

36:31

raise a big chunk of money somewhere,

36:33

you still kind of have to work

36:35

through all the challenges with

36:37

the people that loan you the money in the first place, right?

36:39

Absolutely. We

36:42

do have a group of

36:44

investors in our brewery now.

36:46

So as we moved along,

36:48

we actually did bring in a few people

36:51

that really helped us out and let us

36:53

purchase a new canning line

36:55

and

36:57

try to deal with a lot of the challenges.

37:00

I know a lot of the production guys out there will know

37:02

about all the aluminum can shortage

37:05

and issues that are going on with those.

37:08

And that's still a big problem.

37:13

Yeah. The supply chain

37:15

still has some kinks in it, I think.

37:18

Yeah, yeah, that definitely does. Yeah.

37:21

Well, Tina, Tina, taken

37:23

from a brewer's perspective, perhaps, and

37:26

what are some of the keys to success purely

37:28

from a brewing perspective? Because obviously the beer

37:30

has to be good.

37:32

Absolutely.

37:34

For us, I want to say our

37:36

big thing is consistency. That's

37:39

what I hear really time after time about our

37:41

beer is that no matter when you pick up one of

37:43

them, our batches are consistent.

37:47

Of course, the quality has to be there for sure,

37:50

that kind of goes with, I think, good

37:52

practices. For us,

37:54

it is about making sure

37:57

your yeast is happy and healthy.

38:00

Making sure, of course, everything is clean, just

38:02

like

38:03

you'd expect. Temperature

38:06

control during fermentation is absolutely huge.

38:11

Making sure all your ingredients are quality.

38:14

Of course, it's always a

38:17

fine line there between price and

38:19

quality, so you have

38:21

to really watch it. But, yeah.

38:24

Lots of challenges. So,

38:26

you're big in Kansas, obviously.

38:28

Have

38:33

you looked at expanding in other states, or are you primarily

38:36

focused on distribution in Kansas?

38:39

We have looked at a couple other states. We were

38:41

in Wyoming, of all places, for a

38:44

little while.

38:46

But our distributor decided to

38:48

go out of business there, and they

38:51

handed us off to a different distributor

38:53

who wasn't all that great. So

38:56

from what we can tell, really moving into

38:58

other states, the big challenges we have

39:01

there are finding a good distributor

39:03

to partner with. And

39:05

unfortunately, you just don't know until you start

39:07

working with them.

39:08

But currently,

39:10

we are, say, throughout Kansas, and

39:12

we are also in Missouri as well.

39:15

Great.

39:16

That's awesome. Well, can

39:18

you tell folks where your brewery is located and where

39:20

your website is so they can find you?

39:22

Absolutely. We are in El Dorado, Kansas. Actually, we're

39:24

right in the middle of downtown. If

39:27

you ever want to come

39:29

by the taproom, get a tour or whatever, you're more

39:31

than welcome to. Our

39:33

website is at waldutriverbrewing.com.

39:37

And if you ever want to find out where our beer

39:39

is at, there is an app on

39:42

there called Beer Finder. You can click

39:44

on it and throw in

39:46

your location, and it'll tell you what liquor stores,

39:49

restaurants, whatever, where we're

39:51

at.

39:52

That's awesome. And I wanted to get

39:54

your closing thoughts after demonstrating

39:56

that you don't need millions of dollars

39:58

to start a great brewery.

40:00

Yeah,

40:03

so if you want to get into this, you just got to be patient.

40:06

Try not to reach too far too fast.

40:09

I say I've seen at least two

40:11

breweries in our area fail just because they tried

40:13

to grow too quickly.

40:16

It's just a matter of being

40:18

patient and diligent.

40:20

Interesting. Well,

40:23

Rick, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank

40:25

you so much for being here today.

40:27

Yeah, thank you very much for having

40:29

me. And my guest today was Rick Gehring, head

40:31

brewer and founder of Walnut River Brewing

40:34

Company in El Dorado, Kansas. Thank

40:36

you again, Rick.

40:37

Thank you.

40:39

A big thank you to Rick Gehring for joining me this

40:41

week. Thanks also to Craft Beer & Brewing

40:44

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40:55

And also Beersmith Web, the online version

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41:33

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41:55

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.