M&A, Marketing Org Design, and Why the Taproom Still Wins | Corey Dickinson, Wilding Brands

Speaker: 00:00
Welcome to Shelf Help. Today we're speaking with Corey Dickinson, VP of marketing at Wilding Brands Craft Beverage Portfolio. That's been making a lot of late waves lately, building a pre-premiere craft beverage platform with leading brands like Denver Beerco. Went there many times and I lived in Denver, Great Divide, upslope, know them very well. I think prior to Wild Wilding, I think Corey spent like 10 years or so building Denver Beer Co's marketing function. I think a good chunk of time at Community Beer Coat down in Dallas as well. Long story short, Corey knows the craft beverage world very well, as good as anyone's Corey, welcome. Thanks, Adam. It's good to be here.

Speaker 1: 00:38
And uh I appreciate the lengthy intro. I certainly don't know if I uh uh you know qualify as knowing better than most uh you know in terms of the craft beer industry, but I have certainly spent a good chunk of my professional life in the industry, and that's an industry that I still have so much love for. So wilding brands, yeah. Sort of a new um it's a new new platform, and it's it's not necessarily um consumer-facing. And then we were kind of intentional about that uh for a few reasons, but um we came together, this was this was sort of in the works for a while, actually, but officially came together in the fall of 2024. Origin is you know kind of goes back to goes back about 15 years almost. Um Charlie Berger, the founder of Denver Beer Company, Eric Foster, founder of Stem Ciders, and Brad Lincoln, founder of Funkworks out in Fort Collins. They were all kind of coming up in the beverage industry around that same time. Charlie was working on Denver Beer Company and the launch of that brand, and Foster was working on STEM Ciders, and Brad had Funkworks in its kind of fledgling stage out in in Fort Collins. Um, and and they were they're friends, you know, they just um and and so they kind of um confided in each other in terms of business strategy and product development and that kind of thing, like very early on, and stayed in touch throughout the years. And you know, and in in the last decade um or more, beverage has seen a lot of um interesting changes. I think throughout these changes, decline and growth and decline and growth, um, and and shifts in trends and and whatnot, you know, they they sort of always bounced um ideas off of each other, like, hey, you know, how are things for you? What's going on here? What does next year look like for you? And at some point, um, you know, it became clear that there was some opportunity here in Colorado to create sort of a new platform, bringing together strategically beverage producers to to sort of, I guess, um, deal with some of the headwinds that we're facing, but also create some solutions for for some of our you know, wholesale partners, from some of our account partners, retail partners, um, and and create some new opportunities for innovation and not just liquid innovation, but brand strategy innovation and and that sort of thing. And so the idea was that we wanted to be deep in Colorado. This is our backyard, and you know, it's a big market here, you know, for sure. Colorado is a big craft market, and we wanted to create some opportunities to stabilize um some of our brands, it created some new opportunities. And so through the the the last year and a few months-ish, you know, we we've gone through a series of mergers and acquisitions, and these, and I think publicly it was like, what is going on? But these were I I think it's important to understand that like in any uh in any state and in any industry really, particularly craft, like we're all pretty close knit. You know, it's not like in it, we one day we made a phone call and it was like, hey, so we want to um now it was it was a lot of collaboration and a lot of conversation with friends and industry partners about where their business is was at, where they wanted it to go, what the next one, five, ten years looked like. And it became pretty apparent that there was an opportunity to expand a platform. And and so, yeah, throughout the course of last year, Great Divide joined in April, Station 26, which is a um uh a smaller craft brewery in kind of northeast Denver that is well known for Juicy Banger IPA and Tangerine Cream and 303 Lager, those are their three pretty high performing C's that are like you can find them in a almost anywhere in Denver. Um, and they're in an old firehouse. It's a very cool brand. And then as we move through the year upslope in Boulder as well. And so, you know, these kind of these partnerships and acquisitions for the most part, like allowed us to create a a pretty diverse portfolio and then kind of like strategically position brands within each each, you know, kind of area to play to their strengths and to leverage relationships and successes that they've seen over the years to create successes for other brands that are within our portfolio, to take a hard look at what hadn't been working and say, okay, well, this has not been working. Let's change that because we know that you know we can take lessons that we've learned to cumulatively and and apply them to underperforming products or brands, whatever that may be. So Wilding is not just a you know, it's a platform of of all of these beverage companies. Um, we also have a couple of restaurants as well. Um, but it's also a a a you know, a platform for all of the people that have come from all of these brands. And so, you know, it's kind of cool for for me in particular, and I know for most of the other department heads from sales and production and retail too, retail meaning like our brick and mortar locations. And I get to work with people that came from Great Divide and from Upsophon Station and Denver Beer Company and Howdy Beer and STEM Ciders. And so you get this amazingly creative set of people that have a lot of expertise in different areas and create some really interesting um opportunities for us to to grow. So that's wilding in a nutshell, I guess.

Speaker: 06:16
That's perfect.

Speaker 1: 06:17
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 06:18
I'm totally blanking on the name, but like the is it called Bev Boost, the technology, I think like the founder created where you crack open the can and it has like the hops that that hop in. Is that something you got you working with on a day-to-day basis or whatnot? But, anyways, it's that sounded super.

Speaker 1: 06:33
So hope was an innovation that came from upslope in the fall of last year. They launched that in October of 25. Sort of their like lead fall innovation uh at the chain level. And the conceptually, that product and that application is super, right? So the idea is that you have a widget inside of a can. So similar to if you're familiar with like nitrogenated Guinness in a can, right? Like nitro Guinness, when you open that can, there's a small plastic ball that releases nitrogen that creates that like creamy mouthfeel that you're used to having on draft Guinness. The idea behind hop boosted is that there's a widget, a capsule that holds hop extract. And so when you open that can, a hop extract is released into the beer and it mimics a fresh hop or super fresh IPA. And so that that's the concept. Super cool. And as we worked through onboarding of UPS, so you know, part of that process is you know, QC analysis and and what what we started to to what we found was at the time, that product wasn't exactly where it needed to be. And we had a lot of conversations with some of our retail partners, our wholesale partners about boosted, and we're like, is this confidence right now in this product? Where do how do we feel about continuing this? One, can we can we do this in a way, can we produce this in a way that the liquid quality is consistently high, that the consumer experience is consistently high, that cogs are where they need to be and they make sense. And after a lot of due diligence and a lot of conversation and market research, it was like, this is this is at this moment not where it needs to be. And so we had a pretty tough conversation with our primary distributor here in Colorado is Breakthrough Beverage and some of our other key partners, and said, listen, we have two paths here. One is we continue to do RD and potentially run into some out of stocks, and we're gonna try to navigate that as quickly as we can, or we're gonna press pause on this for now and essentially sell through what's in market, and that will be the end of it for now until we feel that we can relaunch this in a way that is, you know, kind of lives up to the to the concept. Like, and and so um it's kind of unanimous that it was like don't don't get us, you know, put your put the brand in a situation where you're not gonna be able to do it diligence and you're not gonna be able to fulfill a demand. So we put it on pause, and it's a hard decision, but sometimes like that that's just part of business. And but I I you know from a marketing standpoint, I love the concept, and I do hope that it's something that we can produce at one point. I I really do. So we'll see if we come back.

Speaker: 09:36
Super cool. Yeah, yeah. I guess yeah, taking a step back and maybe upslope upslope is is a good example. But I was kind of curious in terms of got a fair amount of brands in the portfolio at this point. I'm not sure if you know some of them felt like they needed uh, I don't know if reorganization is the right word, but I guess my question was like, do you have kind of like a typical or like standardized kind of kind of revitalized the brand playbook when you kind of loop them in? Is there kind of like a typical kind of like 30, 60, 90 day plan to kind of get them integrated specifically in your world and kind of the marketing world?

Speaker 1: 10:09
Brand integrations, yes. But in terms of our approach to like, you know, evaluating opportunities and where these brands find out, no, I don't think there's not like a standardized plan there because I think that every single brand that we have in our portfolio requires individual attention and understanding of like not just the history and the and the and the the persona and the culture behind of these brands, but the audience. And so it's it's not a one size fits all. Like, here's the playbook for upslope or great divide moving forward. Integration is a different thing. Integration is like way more systematic, right? In terms of marketing and sales and production efforts. And so, you know, ramp up of production, tank space and packaging, you know, transitions to packaging die lines and all those things to fit our equipment. And that's all pretty standardized. And you know, marketing is sort of similar in terms of like transitioning digital channels and um you know, and cadence of communications on you know, social and email and all that stuff. So that is that's a systematic approach for sure. Yeah, and we kind of do have a little bit of a playbook. I mean I love to say it's perfect, but look, it's just not. It's not uh some of the it's yeah some of these brands have been around for a really long time, right? Like Great Divide is 32 years old. Yeah, they've accumulated a lot of things, whether it's physical things or digital things, and you're like, you know, you so you have to sort through a lot of that and and figure out like you know, hey, so where does this live and how does this work? And but in terms of strategic like positioning, yeah, we talked through some positioning and and I think understanding like foundational, like evergreen products and audiences and what what what absolutely like we need to ensure we don't, excuse my language, fuck up.

Speaker: 12:02
Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:03
And and then taking a hard look at like what isn't working right now, like what does need to change and and and what is the the path forward and what does that path of change look like? Is it a small change? Is it bigger change? Is this a 30-day, 60-day, 90-day thing, or is this like a one-year, two-year, three-year thing? And so yeah, every brand, I think, in within our own portfolio has um certainly its own strengths um that you know have it's been amazing to get to work with some of these like legacy products and brands that um have such an amazing brand loyalty and consumer base, and um that's been fantastic. Um and and it's been great to say, well, what could this look like in the next year or two? And and where, you know, where does this play? And um, and so in some ways we've got a a good foundation of a plan, and then you know, and when you s when you start looking further out, like you know, into the next 2027, 2028, and beyond, then it becomes a little bit more high level and like can we what what could this potentially move to or change to and and that sort of thing. But I think generally, there are a few exceptions with some some brand the products, I should say, not brands, but we try to put them on board and hopefully have these brands operating in a very similar way so there aren't you know interruptions in production marketing and sales channels, and then once we've got sort of baseline ops, we can start really planning that roadmap of what does the next year or two or three look like?

Speaker: 13:45
Yeah. On that topic, are you I'm sure initially it's they're pretty decentralized, but over time, are you like in terms of what the the org looks like right now with that many brands in the portfolio? Are you like running, do you have like separate, totally separate and kind of siloed marketing teams for each brand, or is it like a centralized function where there's like get a marketing director that covers multiple brands, or maybe the best way to put it is like, what does the marketing org structure look like from the top-down wilding down to across all the brands in the portfolio?

Speaker 1: 14:20
Yeah, it's a good question. Um, it's something where we um we started one way and and we we realized that six months in, that structure wasn't gonna work. Um, we started with individual, maybe not individual brands having their own brand manager, but certainly like groups of brands, depending on size and application and opportunity and market, where we had multiple brand managers overseeing multiple brands. And that what we came to what I came to understand, and my team came to understand, was that like that wasn't leveraging the um the benefit of like wilding as a portfolio, right? Because then you have people that are working in almost sort of independent on of each other on specific goals for specific brands. And so I think my team kind of came together. And I I mean, I was I led this, but I let my team make the final kind of call. Like, hey, does this structure work? What if we changed it? What could it look like? And so, you know, try got buy-in from all of our brand managers. Yeah, I don't we shouldn't have a brand manager that's specifically working on Denver Beer Company and specifically working on Great Divide and specifically working on Howdy Beer and specifically working on STEM because at some point they all end up working on the same things in some way, right? So the way that we siloed this was then sort of like wholesale brand manager, marketing manager, right? So somebody who is really the catalyst between sales, wholesale operations, and our marketing team. So go-to-market strategy and that sort of thing, product development, you know, and then we've got a silo for uh retail marketing managers. So that's the person that is the catalyst to for marketing efforts to our brick and mortar locations, right? So driving uh driving people to our tap rooms and our restaurants and supporting our operators with marketing efforts, events and programs and that sort of thing. And then partnerships. And partnerships are you know bigger events and festivals and sponsorships and you know that that sort of thing. So uh we ended up kind of siloing it into those three channels. And then it was Yeah, well, like looking back on it, it's like, oh yeah, why didn't we just do that to start? But I guess you know, it's one of those examples of like you don't know what doesn't work until you do it, and then you realize, yeah, that doesn't work. But it's great because what it does is it gives, I think one of the challenges when you go through these, like the series of mergers and acquisitions. I mean, we went through four mergers and acquisitions in one year, which is a lot. And and you bring people that are super talented and and inevitably they have specific brand loyalties because that's where they came from. That's what they've been doing for the last one, three, five, in some cases, 10 years. And if you were to put them in a brand manager role, they will work on that brand for sure, just like they always had. But but then they're not thinking about the opportunities beyond that brand within Wilding, right? And so if if you break down those barriers and say, now think about how you would operate if you have access to not just a Great Divide portfolio, but all of these other established craft beer brands, plus a CIDR brand, plus a non-out portfolio. Think about the applications you have for wholesaler programming. Think about how much better we can support our retail accounts. From a partnership standpoint, now we're working with partners, whether it be at uh, you know, I'll use a music festival for an example. Traditionally, music festivals will go to like one or two or three or five breweries or something and say, you know, I want you to come in and either have one brewery and have four different products that fall into a lager, an IPA, a fruit of beer, a wheat beer, whatever it might be, or I'll work with five different breweries to curate this menu. And it's like, well, just work with one person and we can create an amazing experience for consumers. And it's, yeah, we've got hard salts and cider and IPA and lager and non-alcs. So we can curate this experience. And if you want a uh an amazing cross-section of some of the best craft beverage in Colorado, we got that. And you don't have to go to four different other, you know, four different suppliers, you come to us. So it was a little bit of a learning experience for um for for my team and also for the sales team. I'm like, how what are the best ways to to leverage the strengths of wilding? Um, you know, the the the things that we have that maybe some of our competitors don't. And so yeah, it's it's been interesting for sure. And that's so so, anyways, to back to answer your question about the structure, our brand managers operate in those silos, and then I've got a uh creative team and then a digital team as well.

Speaker: 19:02
Got it. How do you personally allocate and kind of balance your time between all the brands in a I don't know, given day, given week?

Speaker 1: 19:11
Dude, let me know if you got any answers about that. Look, I think the name of the game is like the you know flexibility and pivot when you can. For the most part, at a top from a from a top-down approach, like we have our priorities, right? We know that there are certain, whether it be certain brands or certain initiative initiatives or programs that like our top priority for us. And so leadership is is pretty aligned there. Uh, and then it's our job to make sure that our teams are aligned with those priorities and hopefully we can allocate time and appropriately. Does that always happen? No, it certainly doesn't. But um, yeah, it's a bit of a juggling act, but I think that dude, the the beautiful thing is like I no day is the same. Like I love that. I and I've I've always been drawn to that sort of small business mentality, no matter how big the business is, because I I just you know, in some ways you you want to operate outside of the trenches, but I also like having a little bit of like a granular understanding of everything and where everything's going and moving towards. And um, so it's a juggling act. I try to prioritize as best I can, as does everybody else. But um, yeah, I think it's just maintain a positive, like at the end of the day, like we're we're selling beer and cider here. How how fortunate am I to to be able to work with some amazing Colorado uh beverage companies? And um, and at the end of the day, you know, like we're attached to such a cool round. Our HQ offices are attached to a place called Acreage, um, which is like a huge uh restaurant production cidery on this a few acres overlooking the front range. It's beautiful. And so at the end of the day, it's like pop next door and have a have a beer or a cider, and it's like, dude, it's great. Like, gotta have fun with it, right?

Speaker: 21:05
So totally yeah. Totally shifting gears, and you can totally correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like I whether you read about this, you wrote in an article or interview something, and you were just talking about how basically I think the quote was brewing great beer just isn't enough, and that the experience is really what kind of sets breweries and and and craft brands apart. Um, from your perspective, what have you found are some of the key variables or kind of levers you think about when designing a customer experience at a tap room to really kind of create a differentiated experience that's gonna keep them coming back?

Speaker 1: 21:36
Yeah. Yeah, I did say that. I still really do believe that brewing grape beer, that's like the the the first fucking step in that. You know, if you can't do that, then come on. I mean, at this point in the game, it's like that's that's minimal effort. Brew fantastic product. Do you know? I would love to say it's oh, it's just about the the the the marketing, the messaging. It's not, it's about the people behind the bar.

Speaker: 22:00
Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:01
It's I really do believe that if you you know, ha all things equal, right? You've got good product, um, you know, you got a cool space, even if it's not that cool of a space, truthfully, you can make up for that with great service and and and interacting with people who care and are having fun and enjoy what they're doing. And so I I think it starts there hiring the right people, creating a company culture that fosters that sort of like environment. Um and then, you know, the nice thing about wilding is that there's opportunity for people to grow beyond, like because we're a bigger organization now, um, there's upward mobility, there's opportunities that previously probably may not have existed within a singular organization, a more singular brand, I should say. And so, and I think it's like putting people in a position to have fun and succeed. And then if they want to, if they're interested in learning more and developing professionally, it's like, yeah, that opportunity is here. Whether you want to learn more about a different brand that's within our portfolio or you want to consider management or working more into sales or marketing or production, we have a lot of folks that have done that even the last year and said, you know, I I've been here for the last two years, love it, but like I would want to learn more about production brewing, and I want to be involved in that. And um, so we've got salespeople that have moved into production, we've got production people that have moved into front of house. Yeah, and I think it's it just it comes out on the people, dude. It really does.

Speaker: 23:37
I had another guy on the podcast with a lot of years in the BeVALC space as well, and um he said something that just resonated with me. He said, like I think he said something along the lines of uh the Bevalk distro space has become just like the NBA in terms of it's turned into a a players league, meaning just kind of the biggest, the big conglomerate's gonna set the priorities for the distributors, command all the attention, kind of leaving the smaller brands to kind of fend for themselves and from a selling perspective, merchandising perspective, and basically um, you know, they're basically just kind of the logistics arm and the smaller brands have to do everything themselves. I'm curious, would you kind of agree with that? And kind of what's your take on the distributor landscape today and maybe how it's changed over the past, I don't know, five, ten years or so?

Speaker 1: 24:24
Yeah, it's an interesting parallel. And I can I can totally understand that sort of analogy, no doubt about it. And in some ways, that is a symptom that led to wilding, right? Like I think in some ways that was our that is um our answer to that. Yeah, you know, the as a standalone singular brand, it it is extremely competitive. Wholesalers can be drawn to, especially in this environment, taking lower risks, which generally means working with larger companies with you know proven um sales records and proven products and and a lot more resources. And so, you know, and it I craft is is funny. I'm gonna kind of like back up a little bit here, but the perception of like what is big, you know, in the craft beer industry. What what is a big company? What is this, you know, and so in in in some ways, depending on the audience, it's like well, wilding is a really big company, and it's like it's like it's so not, it is so not a big company. But but relative to each independent brand, I we're a big company. But um so yeah, I I think that with Wilding, our hope is the majority of our brands are distributor-aligned with a craft-centric distributor, breakthrough beverage here in Colorado. And um our our hope is that as a portfolio, we can create more opportunity and more of a you know more opportunity for for breakthrough beverage, right? Where we can say, here is the most, here's the highest quality product, the most competitive price, and we've got a consolidated marketing and sales team to support you in your efforts. Um, here is our our priorities and and and they have our attention because it's no longer one brand. It's we've got several that now are uh inevitably are a focus of theirs for sure. So it strengthens the partnership, no doubt about it. As a smaller indie brand, I think, yeah, in some ways when you look at a cold set, I mean, we're specifically speaking about like off-prem right now, but you you can't have a a thousand IPAs on a shelf.

Speaker: 26:33
True. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:35
Because that's doing a disservice to the consumer at some point. It sort of is, because what will happen is you know, it's a disservice to the retail account, because they've got all this shit that like maybe it pulls, maybe it doesn't. And at some point, if the product isn't pulling, then it's out of code, and then that consumer purchases that and it's not what they were hoping it's gonna be, and then it's they have a poor experience and a bad product, and then yada yada yada yada. Um, and so, anyways, as a smaller brand, I think you have to become a little bit more strategic, a little bit more surgical, um, and and also a little bit more um realistic with your goals. Where do you where does your product need to be? What is important to your the success of your brand? Is it an off-premise account? If so, what type of account is best suited for your brand? Is it a, you know, if you're a a niche product, is it a um a smaller indie bottle shop that is going to do do service do for your for your brand and represent it well because the person behind the counter can speak to it because they're focused on those types of like niche brands. So I think like changing your strategy and your and your expectations and your goals accordingly is part of that. Because yeah, look, dude, we're not, I don't know, the Super Bowl commercials and that kind of shit. Like there are there are there's always going to be a much bigger brand with a lot more resources. And but with that, creates a lot of opportunity to be surgical because they will overlook all of the more local, more direct relationships that you can develop as a craft brewer. So yeah, and then most importantly, and I know that this seems like so freaking obvious, but like don't neglect I mean, certainly you need like prioritize your own premise, your taproom experience. Like if you are developing a strategy that in some ways takes focus off of that, I think that that's a pretty big mistake. I still think it rings true today as it did five years ago and 10 years ago and 20 years ago, that like that firsthand experience is the most important thing for you. And it's your bread and butter, it's your highest margin product, right? And so, like, and that that creates the most loyalty that you're going to be able to get. And so, yeah, I would always prioritize. I still we always as a marketing and and sales team here, like I prioritize resources better, you know, to drive people to our taproom locations first. Because I know that those efforts create brand loyalty, and I know that that does still relate to product depletions in market.

Speaker: 29:20
For sure, totally. Obviously, some level, some level of a flywheel there. They buy it at your brewery, then they want to buy it in the store. Uh, how are you guys at all thinking about the the hemp uh THC beverage space?

Speaker 1: 29:32
Yeah, it's interesting. It's certainly something that we've talked about quite a bit over the last few years. This is even before wilding. Colorado is is creates some, you know, it is a little bit of a different market than than some other states for sure. And when we kind of ran in an opportunity kind of analysis, what we what could what it could look like. Um I don't think we're gonna get into TC. I don't I don't see that as being a priority of ours. I think it's a really interesting market. I I see a lot of um brands that are that are seeing a lot of success. We're just there's a lot of questions around it um and what it looks like for the next one, three, five. And uh I think right now, given that um the last year for wilding, like we're going, we're we're pretty focused on Bev Alc, non-alk, that kind of stuff, and and THC is is not necessarily at the top of our list. But I I as a as a guy who's in this industry, it's it's certainly interesting. And I'm um I I hope that brewers can use that product line to their advantage.

Speaker: 30:40
Am I right that uh formation brewing that's on them that you guys have basically created and launched from scratch?

Speaker 1: 30:47
Yeah, uh, you know, and and so formation was a was a project that I uh that that we started work on at DBC before wilding. And so Formation is in Phoenix and it's its own brand in a really cool neighborhood called Roosevelt Row. And so Roosevelt Row, if I don't know if you've ever spent any time in Phoenix, but yeah, a bunch of time actually. Okay, nice, nice. So it's a super cool area, it's very artsy, um, and it kind of reminds me of of the Rhino neighborhood here in Denver a bit. Um, but um initially the concept was is there opportunity for DBC to expand into another market and create a similar like hub and spoke model that was taproom centric, right? Or I should say it's tap room, like it's more of a brew pub, right? Restaurant and and and tap room. Um and and so to create a kind of another network. And we kind of we felt pretty strongly that Denver Beer Company as a brand was not the right fit for a you know an Arizona-based model. So we we built formation and and we launched that that last year, and it's a freaking amazing place, honestly. Like the Taproom, it's so beautiful. The food program there is fantastic, such an awesome neighborhood. And so we'll we'll see um what happens next in the Arizona market. Um it's sort of an interesting, it's an interesting market. I think it's in some ways, I don't want to say it's it's behind Colorado, but it's the competitive set is much different in Arizona than it's in Colorado. Yeah. So um I think there's still some some there's there's still opportunity in in Arizona for some brands to grow and to see meaningful growth and successes through, you know, I go back to kind of what I just said a couple minutes ago, focusing on the experience that you get firsthand from coming into a spot and bridging that experience to potentially grow into a couple other locations. We'll see what happens.

Speaker: 32:44
What were uh kind of the key variables that were top of mind for things that are most important when you're building out the brand identity kind of positioning voice and you know, can packaging design for for this new brand?

Speaker 1: 32:55
For formation? Oh man. Well, we didn't want it to be too Colorado. It still's got a little bit of Colorado in it, no doubt about it. Um, but we spent a lot of time in market in Arizona, um, and not just at breweries. We, you know, it was like art galleries, music, restaurants, festivals, sporting events. Um we talked to a lot of people in the industry, outside of the industry, and hospitality and tourism, just to get a better feel for the market. And and what we kind of found was like there's a lot of cultural overlap to Colorado, for sure. But we also knew that like Phoenix, particularly that part of Phoenix, was art-driven, maybe a little bit more um, it's definitely more diverse in terms of food and music and people and tourism than than Colorado or Denver specifically. And so our our hope was to create a brand that was driven by Arizona, the landscape and the culture. So our menu and and a lot of our beers reflect that, and then sort of take a little bit more of like an elevated approach. I think we saw that maybe there's an opportunity there to position like the formation experience and brand um as more of a premium experience. Um in that neighborhood, we there's a lot of there's quite a few breweries, and none of them are kind of operating in in that space. There's a lot of them that do a freaking great job, and it's a really cool neighborhood because you can kind of bounce around and uh check out a few different spots. And so our hope with with formation is that we create a unique experience that's not like, oh, this is like going to the other place down the street. It's certainly a standalone and it's it's unique. And so yeah, I don't know if that answered your question.

Speaker: 34:42
I think you built the like e-commerce platforms, I think, at both Denver Beer Co. and Community Beer. And from I know for a variety of reasons, like one just kind of the the weight of liquid is like you know, building a D to D C and beverage is just kind of notoriously tricky, and just making it work from a variety of reasons. Like, what's what did you just find was kind of the key to building an actual kind of sustainable D2C channel in this craft beverage journal?

Speaker 1: 35:08
Well, so this is interesting. So we did not approach this from a liquid standpoint. Okay or attention. Um so this is now there is a liquid application here, of course, but there are different regulations surrounding different liquids, particularly here in Colorado. So we can't actually sell alk beer direct.

Speaker: 35:28
Okay.

Speaker 1: 35:29
We don't our our our e-com is uh solely non-alk product and cider, cider is considered a wine. So we have DDC opportunities with those two liquids, and then it's it's merchandise and merchandise, so um wearables, right? Like what we as we grew with DVC and we opened up new locations, we realized that like our merch program was one, like every freaking breeze merchandise is like sort of an afterthought. It's like, oh yeah, we should have like t-shirts, of course. But it's not very intentional. Um and we realized like, dude, there's definitely like opportunity here if we're intentional with our merchandise. And then we, you know, this is kind of before I joined DPC, but they they created a model that was like not sustainable, meaning like they were they were managing fulfillment and warehousing and distribution of merchandise to three locations, and then we had four locations, then we had five locations, and now we have um 10 brick and mortars. And so the whole driver actually behind e-comm was to create a system, like a 3PL system where we could fulfill customer orders and drive some rev from our consumers online, but also fulfill orders for our taproom brick and mortars. And so that is why we built our current e-com um program. And it was to set the stage for additional brands, additional locations, and to create a a program that was easier for our operators to work with and keep their stores stocked with merchandise and that sort of thing. So yeah.

Speaker: 37:08
That makes a lot of sense. That that connects the dots for me more much more. Yeah. Yeah, Corey, this has been awesome. We jumped around to a bunch of stuff, but this is this is super fun, super interesting. What's the best place for like people to follow along with with you? And then I know wilding isn't really customer facing, so I don't know if you want to you know, shout out any brands out of your job. What do you want people to follow along in from the brand side?

Speaker 1: 37:30
You know, yeah, so wilding is in public, right? Because truthfully, like as a consumer, why should you give a shit about it, right? Like really, it's about the individual brands, and that's the hope. Like, I don't, I don't know. B2B, you know, yeah, that that makes sense, right? Like wilding, there's value there, and there are wholesale relationships. But um, I don't know. What do we have coming up? Dude, we got a lot of things in the works, but I would say, you know, for a a shameless pitch, all right. So what's coming up? Like if you're local to the uh front range or Denver area specifically, DBC's got this event coming up. I know this is like not exactly what you were looking for. No, this is great. I'll take anything. It's cool. DBC every year, beer, bacon, coffee. Okay, we do this event. It's unlimited beer, bacon, and coffee. And like that's just a premise. That's it. It's very simple. Uh, but it's like we work with local coffee purveyors, we work with like a local food purveyor, um, and we do all these like breakfastine beers, and we've got like crossword puzzles, we've got a bacon-eating contest. Like, it's just a fucking fun event. So that's what's coming up with DC. But no, obslope has a lot of cool stuff on the horizon as well. Great divide. It's Stout Mont Yeti is one of the best Imperial Stouts here in Colorado. So I would say like check out all of our brands because I, you know, and and if you're looking to like, you know, stay in touch with like wilding and what we're doing from a um, you know, from a portfolio standpoint, then you know, I think like LinkedIn is always a good kind of like thing there. You can always check that out. But uh yeah, outside of like some you know, some industry rags, you're not gonna hear much about wilding. I don't so cool.

Speaker: 39:13
Yeah, we'll highlight some of these uh the new vents and products and stuff for sure.

unknown: 39:16
Yeah.

Speaker: 39:16
Awesome man, Corey's been great. Really appreciate the time. I think uh I think that's the puzzle.

Speaker 1: 39:20
Yeah, man. Uh really good chatting. Stay in touch. Let me know if you're in Phoenix, and definitely let me know next time you're uh back out here in Colorado.

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