To many brewers, P&L statement bring fear. But to Chris? Those numbers make his world go round. Chris Farmand started Small Batch Standard, a brewery consultant and accounting firm back in 2010. Since then, they've helped craft brewers all over find the leaky tap in their business. McFleshman's recently brought on SBS and it's been a learning experience for everyone!

Listen to this episode where we cram into the business office cause an Irish jam session has filled the tap room below!

Visit Small Batch Standard: https://sbstandard.com/

Listen to The True Craft Podcast: https://sbstandard.com/podcast/

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CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer!

01:12 Chris Farmand of Small Batch Standard

01:54 Packed Taproom Mystery

02:59 Small Batch Standard Origin

06:32 Emy Finds The Fit

09:09 Profit Hat Philosophy

12:57 Blue Ocean Beer Strategy

17:23 Onboarding Wins So Far

19:44 Following The Dollar

23:31 Keg Profit Reality Check

24:29 Holding the Line on Pricing

25:55 Margins Versus Mission

29:17 Hard Decisions for 2026

33:15 Execution and Focus Framework

35:08 Two Week Task Triage

36:12 True Craft Podcast Breakdown

41:29 Embrace Change Know Numbers

42:26 Brewery Data Tools and Models

47:27 Support us on Patreon!

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CREDITS

Hosts:

Bobby Fleshman - https://www.mcfleshmans.com/

Allison Fleshman -https://www.instagram.com/mcfleshmans/

Joel Hermansen

Gary Ardnt - https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/

Music by Sarah Lynn Huss - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.huss.52/

Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow - https://davidkalsow.com/

Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co

McFleshman's: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer I am Decker taking over for Gary.

Gary couldn't be here today because we're in a small room and I think he got lost on the way up got distracted by the Irish music and now he's enjoying that joining me today as always He's probably producing his an episode of his own podcast right now That's probably all time probably focused on something a bit more Gary focused I would say but you heard him already.

We got Bobby here What's going on today living Life about to talk business today It sounds it's true which if you're talking business that means that I was brought back on Yes Because I might be the brains of the operation Allison here as well to talk about the business side and it makes sense that we're inside of what I would assume is the business office here Yes The control center in brewery Fourth Monday in our tap room is a little loud today So we are hunkered down in our business office room also joined by Emy Sank Bill who is our general manager and we are thankful for her remote today Say hi Emy We're in three places

Hi friends.

McFleshman's: Go team Welcome to the podcast

And today we're talking with Chris Farman from Small Batch Standard And this is a little bit of a different type of company than we've at least since I've been hosting this that we've talked to We've talked to breweries we've talked to brewers and now we're talking with a guy who works on the business side of growing those operations Chris why don't you give us a little idea about just like the elevator pitch of a small batch standard B Before you do that Chris I just want to a little back up and let's let's remind everybody or tell everyone how we found you since we have Emy after the fact Well Emy's here though It feels all right So Allison has chronology in mind so here we go Yeah So go ahead Chris Do what Deborah Decker said

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: I'm d I'm dying.

I I have to ask what could possibly pack your tap room on a Monday night?

Please share.

McFleshman's: I was circling that knowing you wanted to know about that I knew it already Yes

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yes.

I'm

McFleshman's: did All right Emy you wanna take it

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: talk tomorrow.

I'm giving a talk tomorrow on tap room tactics, and I'm going to reference whatever you tell me.

McFleshman's: Emy Take it

Free music.

And when I say free music, I mean free all the way around.

As in there is a community program downstairs in the tap room right now who is just using our space to get together.

It's a bunch of musicians who play.

I recession music, so we have a live I recession happening right now in our tap room that cost us $0.

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Amazing.

Mm-hmm.

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Amazing.

That's great.

That is great.

Yeah.

I'm always on the hunt for ideas, for new, fresh ideas that are packing tap rooms and tasting rooms and because that's where the business really is these days.

That's fortunately, where the, the businesses these days.

But we'll get to more of that in a minute.

Thank you for having me on the show today.

Yes.

My name is Chris Farm and I founded Small Batch Standard 2010.

2011, and prior to that I didn't brew beer, but I was into fermentation.

was into fermentation.

And by that I mean I was making kombucha and I was making sauerkraut, and I was making kafi and I anything that would ferment in my fridge and I could ingest, I would make.

And so, while that doesn't have a direct link to beer, I respect turning, like, putting an organism in liquid and having it turn into something magical or, or change its composition.

Well, I started working with a brewery in my hometown and I said, wow, this is a really fascinating, complicated business.

How many of these exist in the United States?

And, and who's doing this stuff for them?

So I set out on a journey.

I started going to festivals and I started going to conferences.

And I started asking, who's doing your excise taxes?

Who's filing your year end taxes?

Who's doing your r and d credit?

Who's doing your accounting?

And all I got was crickets.

It was crickets.

I am pretty sure from 2012 to 2014, the TTB may have got a combined a hundred reports out of all the breweries and it in existence.

So I, at that point, I saw there was a need there, there was definitely a need.

And you know this, it's an amazing ownership group.

It's a entrepreneurial spirit.

It is people coming from all walks of history and all walks of life to create liquid that other people ingest and love to get together and be in a community space and drink.

And so I was like, I'm gonna help these folks.

I'm gonna help them understand their numbers and, well, first it was, let me help them do their accounting and just do their taxes and make sure they're on the straight and narrow.

2015 rolled around, or 2016 rolled around and I said, where's my north star?

Where's my guiding star?

And it, it, there wasn't one, there was no North star, there was no benchmarks.

I had a small meltdown and regrouped myself and said, I'm gonna develop these benchmarks or these guideposts for breweries.

it's taken us about 10 years to refine them and test them and, and see what stuck.

And see, see what matters.

Not every number on your financials matters, a few matter a lot.

So we just started understanding the ins and outs of really, I call it following the dollar.

We just started following the dollar at every angle of the business, and built a blueprint, built a playbook, whatever you wanna call it, to help breweries, number one, get their books in order, and number two, generate more profit.

And here we are in 2026, just.

Doing our thing.

You know, we are a team of 36, as of today, 36

McFleshman's: Wow

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: US based W2 employees just all cranking, beaten to the same drum.

We, we work only with craft beverage manufacturers, which I'm really proud about that because I was talking to, I was interviewing someone today actually, and they're like, that would be amazing just to be a subject matter expert rather than work with like the chiropractor for an hour and then the kennel for three hours and then the chi the dentist for two days.

McFleshman's: Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: I'm really proud of what we've built and, and the expertise that we've built within the, the firm.

So

McFleshman's: well that expertise was oh I love it The expertise was what drew Emy to introduce all of us such that we could then move forward Emy tell your story

I met them at a Craft Brewing Professionals conference down in New Orleans last December, and coming in and seeing how things were run, we were trying really hard, but I knew there had to be a better way and.

I'm big on industry specifics, so if I can find somebody where all they do is work within my industry, which used to be broader, if you work in food and beverage, that's great.

But you work specifically with breweries.

You understand the manufacturing, you understand the taproom, you understand the movement of beer and all of the dynamics where with any other accounting service, they understand accounting, but we have to teach them the brewery specifics.

And then we're paying experts that we're having to teach anyways, and it gets old.

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yep.

We hear that story a lot.

We hear that story a lot.

And I get it, our industry is built on generalization.

I actually, if you think about it, doctors, lawyers, engineer.

I don't want a civil engineer building a bridge.

Like seriously.

McFleshman's: Totally

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: So, so, so like we're the last industry to specialize.

'cause it's, scary.

It's scary to specialize.

It, it, it's nice to be a generalist and say, I helped the, the vet today.

And I, and then I helped the coin laundry person yesterday.

Like, like it's just like all these validation hits we're a bunch, accountants are introvert, validation junkies is what we are.

Right?

We're

McFleshman's: That's like most professors

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: oh yeah, maybe there's a, maybe there's a connection there.

So yes.

The specialization's huge and, and you don't have to teach us and most cases we're collaborating within the first week and we're sharing what we've learned and, and breweries are putting stuff into practice pretty quick.

McFleshman's: And as we talked about here it's it's such an interesting business because it's really three businesses in one We're a production facility we're a distribution company and we're also a hospitality company And so those three have very different and it's taken us years to figure this out and we've solely put people in place that have this specialty of each of those different sectors but it I mean Emy's right We were working with our bookkeepers and like we were teaching them I mean I can't imagine the hours that we spent teaching them things And they then went and learned things and domain knowledge of specialization is worth its weight when it comes to the business

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yep.

McFleshman's: And brewers aren't smart enough to know what questions to ask So we have to find experts on the other side that tell us which questions we should be asking and then helping us find the answers to them Uh I I notice you're wearing your hat today you're always wearing your hat

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Always.

McFleshman's: hat says profit Yeah Every every time That's his brand And it's yellow with black letters per profit Mm-hmm Waiting on ours like the money not the foreseer of the future Sometimes the same thing Now that's fair

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: We've given out over 500 of these hats and we have 400 more coming in for CBC, which I don't think will take all 400 there, but like hats have taken a life of their own and they've shown up everywhere and.

I developed these, I designed these hats out of silent protest in the 20 teens, nobody wanted to talk about profit or listen to me talk about it.

We were worrying about people's feelings and we were worrying about other things.

And then COVID hit, and then we were worrying about really serious things.

And then post COVID, I was like, I'm done trying to talk about this, so I'm just gonna make this hat and not talk about it.

And I tell people when we're at conferences, take a hat.

You don't have to wear it, just put it on your desk.

Let it be a conversation starter.

And we've given out so many of these hats and I hope they're going to, to good use.

But yeah.

Look, I think this is a creative industry.

My brother's a creative, he, he does visual creative stuff.

Creative people generally don't like the friction side of business.

In, money out discipline, boundaries is friction.

You don't always get the answer you want.

So.

While the, the liquid that these brewers make and, and everyone makes is just so, so incredible.

There's gotta be a balance between the creative and the business to make this, to make this all work.

The bus.

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: the banks, the investors, yourself, your family didn't get into this to

McFleshman's: Being dead and lose our houses

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Right, exactly.

McFleshman's: I mean what do we say We we we're not in it to make a fortune We're in it to make a living for the the families and those that work with us for our team

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Right.

McFleshman's: But no it's funny you know you you share you share this and that's pretty much like I think the the school of hard knocks at Bobby And I keep saying that we have now graduated from or or actually still enrolled in you've summed it up because it took us forever to realize when we first opened we were like oh no if we build ca or make cast conditioned ales they will just drink it We don't have to advertise we don't have to do anything like that It'll oh they will just come and buy it No no profit is not guaranteed If anyone's around me for more than five minutes or five days probably more realistically they'll know that Jovan Cho

losing

McFleshman's: of Patagonia is someone I look up to in business 2.7 Yeah Is when you start talking about yeah And I don't know know story you may have read his book books at this point maybe but basically he doesn't consider himself a a capitalist or or an entrepreneur even but at some point he started to understand that if he was going to do the good things he wanted to do he had to embrace at least the theme of the title if not the title itself So I really looked up to what he's done with with his success and how he's embraced living and book Blue Oceans No that's uh oh no Oh no My not blue Oceans Let my people go surfing Yeah That's it Yeah Yeah Anyway it's I I highly highly recommend it for people who think that they're in this for the love of it but at their core they wanna do something good with it and they don't think that they are a a grubby whatever what do you stuffy I should say business person It's pretty awesome what he's been able to do

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Mm-hmm.

And that's the founder of Patagonia?

The clothing line.

McFleshman's: Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

Nice.

Okay.

I'll check that.

I'll definitely check that book out.

Allison, the Blue Oceans book that when I was in grad school changed my life, reshaped the way that I

McFleshman's: Yeah Who wrote that Oh remember who wrote that

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: my life.

I should know.

Huh?

McFleshman's: No it's okay What is it about if it changed your life you wanna tell what it's about I'm gonna let Chris no

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

Blue Ocean Strategies by Renee.

gonna butcher this.

McFleshman's: I got it Little strategy It doesn't even say no Our producer David is giving us the Yes Close enough for our podcast Do the awkward edit over the top of that Oh it's their classic book blue Ocean Strategy Chan Kim and Renee Ma Ma Born May Ma Born That is four different pronunciations though So here comes the concept though behind it You wanna give that Chris what

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: the concept behind it is, is simply do you wanna swim in bloody waters where people are all fighting for the same piece of customer or fish or whatever, or do you wanna swim in blue oceans, which is basically infinite customer base infinite success.

so of the, the examples that sticks to my head is, is you know, is Cirque de Soleil is is the example in the book, right?

So Cirque de Soleil took a concept that has been gaining a lot of.

You know, awareness and public attention and peta attention and and so on.

And it's like, hey, treating animals this way and, and dragging people from city to city on trains and inhumane conditions and asking animals to do things that are not natural, is not sustainable.

they just took a circus concept and completely eliminated all of the bad things, and it became like, you can't, you can't beat 'em, right?

They're, they're

McFleshman's: So it's

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: every major

McFleshman's: right

And also some of the most entertaining hours you can spend watching people do amazing things

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Oh, totally,

McFleshman's: Yep

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: totally, totally, totally.

I you know, on the, that to beer, we talk about white space beer all the time, right?

We talk about white space beer, and, and what that means is, is in your distributor's portfolio, what style is missing?

McFleshman's: Mm Yep

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: can you create to fit into their portfolio?

So you're no longer an afterthought, but now you're, you're filling a void with a style and all of a sudden they're able to put you in, in many places.

So I think that would be the closest comparison.

McFleshman's: Yeah that was the argument actually against

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: anything?

McFleshman's: Well I was gonna say that that argument was the one that it was Stephanie Harvey who really pushed us on something Amber as opposed to our Pirates cove Bobby really wanted Pirates Cove to be our hellis logger to be like the beer that we really focused on in distribution And it's impossible to compete with Nuclear's Spotted Cow which is technically a cream ale but it's a light feeling lager like beer And it is basically the exact same as Pirate's Cove in in the consumer's eyes And so but there wasn't really an amber that was out there that was um with with that distributor With a specific distributor yeah Even but more to the point though we make an Irish stout on Nitro which sounds kind of pedestrian until giant drinking Yeah And until you walk into a bar and they have a nitro and that's the only kinda thing they wanna serve from it So if a dis if a distributor doesn't have it in their in their book then then that like you said that's a white space that's an opportunity And we've been able to without any effort whatsoever make that like our number four beer and and distribution without any effort because it just sells itself cause it's it's the only option We think it's good liquid too but it it just seems to lined up strategically

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Sure.

And sometimes you have to, you have to play that strategic, angle.

Yeah.

So, so, people going after spotted cow business would be swimming in bloody water.

That

McFleshman's: Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: tough market of a dominant player.

The great white eats first and everyone eats last.

Right?

Versus you just take getting out of that pond and going to your own and being like, I'm gonna swim here.

Nope.

No one can really touch me here.

Right?

Good, good parallel there.

McFleshman's: So Emy you found these guys and you say that it has you know transformed how this business is McFleshman's has been has been running.

What is one of those moments where you're like aha this is working

We're very much still in the onboarding process with them right now, but it's already helping us with.

Making sure the industry specific things that need to get done, get done inventories

McFleshman's: you're talking about like taxes and

and not just that though, it's all of that, but it's making sure that our inventories are done properly, consistently, making sure that.

Items that we're expensing are actually categorized, right, so that we can get a full overview, making sure our people are classified correctly so that we can see where our labor dollars are going.

It's giving us a roadmap and an overview to see our entire business laid out in front of us from a different angle than most of us look at it every single day.

McFleshman's: Right And we had for a while Um I mean folks it's been a revolving door unfortunately and fortunately in the business side of the business and you know everyone has done with great intention the best they could However they just ne weren't necessarily trained in the specific industry And so things like the default and when we switched to toast is our operating or not operating system the point of sale system in the tap room you could link like our brewers to the We did payroll within the system as well And but they didn't have a brewer but they had chef So things like that they're like well I guess they're a chef Click And so there's things that just didn't really align that way And it was really naivety than it was you know oh we're trying to screw the system It's like no we just didn't know And so having someone that really understands like the fourth like I mean the small batch standard they have hindsight because they worked with so many businesses And

US

McFleshman's: bookkeepers that we had who did an excellent job getting our books in a much better shape than they were before didn't have any sort of hindsight cause they'd never worked with a brewing company before So they they didn't necessarily know what they didn't know which just goes to talk about experience how valuable experience really is

financial.

McFleshman's: And Chris you know you've been working with a lot of breweries now what is one you know I guess we're well I I wanna talk a little story about like what successes that we've seen Obviously Mick Fleshman is in the the starting phase of the success story but what is someone that you know when when you're making this this pitch at CBC and you're like you know these guys they had great liquid they had a great spot but they just couldn't figure it out And we came in and we worked with them and now like they are what you think of like an industry standard in this market

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: That's a great question.

So I think where we the most is brewery will approach us and say, we've been doing this for 5, 7, 10 years and barely paying ourselves.

Debts being paid, rent's being paid, employees are being paid, but this isn't exactly what we envisioned, we don't know where the hole in the boat is.

Our superpower is to go to the financials, look at the numbers, clean them up if they need to be cleaned, or if they're clean enough, take 'em, and then really split them.

Business units because most people that we talk to understand how profitable the beers are sold out of the tap room and how unprofitable are in distribution.

Right?

So

McFleshman's: I feel seen Yeah right The the you knows pause there like those those few sentences will resonate with 50 of every people out there He's not talking about Mc Fleshman I'm just saying Yeah Yeah Totally

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: yeah.

look, there's been lots of, there's been lots of partners disputes over one brewer wants to distribute, one business person who's like, we're good.

in the tap room and we're just gonna double down.

I've seen partnerships break up over that.

I've seen someone go off and open their own brewery over that, over that disagreement.

But at, at the end of the day, once we understand and follow the dollar between the various business units, then we can go back and say, huh, well your tap room standalone is doing really, really well and distro standalone is not doing well.

And we have formulas and ways to really equalize that.

We're not just simply saying, look, if one of these business units went away, the other could survive on its own.

No, it doesn't work that way 'cause it's one collective business.

But we do have two distinct profit and unprofitable revenue streams.

So from there we just dig further.

We just keep digging.

And I would say.

biggest is when we show someone their portfolio,

It still controls the

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Margin analysis.

And, and that basically is saying,

this

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: this is what you take home in wholesale by sku when everything is paid for, expenses are paid for, and it's usually a dark, dark red number, right?

McFleshman's: Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: it's a negative number.

And so that's a hard pill for some people to swallow.

Is that, and I'm gonna get to a specific story in a second here, but that's a hard pill for some people to swallow because you opened a brewery, you wanna see your beer on taps, you wanna see 'em on shelves.

Like, that's why you're, you're here.

But name me a business that sells units of anything at a loss that doesn't exist.

It, does not exist.

Example that I'm gonna give you is, is a client, I can, I can't say the name.

A client was distributing, 12 ounce cases and sixto of a style.

It's a pretty viral beer in their state.

They held onto the sixto because if you ever heard any SBS talks, small match standard talks, you'll know that your sixto is your most profitable skew in distro.

Then 16 ounce cases, then 12 ounce and coming in at a dead last is your half barrel.

McFleshman's: And the six stool is the five gallon Yep Keg Just FYI

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: the five gallon, yeah.

McFleshman's: Just in case anyone doesn't know that who's listening I was just gonna ask because I think he was just making up a word there A second 30 divided by six Yeah 31 by six Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: We said, under no circumstance can you go into the half barrel, because when we do the numbers, the distributor's only going to pay this much for it, and this is what the net will be.

And right now at $6 and 12 ounce cases, everything was in the black.

So they held out, they held out, they held out, and the distributor finally came to them and said, Hey, we're no longer taking six tools for your top 50 accounts in draft.

They, they won half barrels, they're done.

You're gonna lose tabs.

So they came back to us and they're like, where do we price it?

And the typical conversion did not work in the situation.

That guy brought them to the loss.

So they walked up to the distributor and they said, in order us to, for you to sell you half barrels, they've gotta be at this amount.

the distributor accepted it and business.

Kept.

Yeah.

Business kept moving forward.

Now, like I said, this is a, a viral beer in a state.

It's one style.

It's a, I guess you'd call it session semi hazy.

IPA.

And they already had traction.

They already had momentum.

They already had a lot of things going.

I you could say leverage order to make these demands and, and get close to their asking price.

But that's the kind of analysis that needs to be done when any decision or validation that needs to be done when any business decision is, is being considered.

once you start with a sku, it's hard to like move it, discontinue it, increase price de well, you can always decrease price, but you'll never increase it again.

S so

McFleshman's: Well that's one of the hardest parts I think Oh sorry Keep going

I was just gonna say it's one of the hardest parts I think about being privy to both sides where you know you're talking to customers and they're telling you about they're like oh my God I love this beer I love this thing you did or I love it so much and it's amazing and you wanna validate Like I love that You love that and it brought you joy and it filled your heart with goodness But you can't say like yeah and we're never gonna do that again cause Wow Did we lose our asses on that idea you know the squeaky wheel right Oh it's so hard because they just don't know And Bobby Bob as Bobby has a a t-shirt that is it says something about brewery owner freak in the sheets and and hang on No no no no And it's a picture of a spreadsheet and like that's really what brewery ownership is is you need to be a freak in the sheets cause you are like only looking at spreadsheets in the end And I love that the beer has brought joy and it's you know the liquid is well it's about but in the end it's a spreadsheet game Well it spreadsheets just one of the things we do now that we didn't think we'd be doing you know cleaning toilets you're breaking the tape too and doing spreadsheets and all And but we do all that to get to the stuff that we love I mean yeah we all know that at this point It's just something that I It was actually a consultant that Lawrence hired One of the things that they said is like without margin there is no mission Yeah And so as much as we like to think that you know that's a really great way of describing Yvonne

Chouinard's philosophy Yeah Like like I love that we wanna do all of this like philanthropic work or like let's spend so much money on what did you buy the other day that pissed me off Or barrels Yeah the barrels Yeah Do we really need to barrel each the cider Well let's ask Chris's team later And Chris you and I we're gonna yeah But I think this this is an important conversation because you know Chris just said a lot of like very technical business marketing and like accounting things that I a communications person and like I I would be a considered a creative I think that a brewer as a general profession is creative A lot of that stuff is really really boring and like really like feels like this isn't what I feel like I need to do Mm-hmm And I don't need to worry about that How do you then like besides being like you're gonna lose money if you don't do this Yeah Like you're gonna be outta business if you don't do this How do you present it to people that are you know in that that creative realm of like I am making these unique barrel age saisons triple dry hop that are like aged on whatever and like I'm gonna sell it for $6 a pint You know like how do you really like how do you reach 50 or nine But yeah Like how do you I know what's going on in your mind right now Chris I've heard you Do you deliver jagged pills That's your j it's your job right now

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah, I mean, I, I used to be a whole lot more jagged.

I, I try to approach it with baby gloves now and, and deliver the news, but

McFleshman's: Can we ask for the jagged pill Mm-hmm I'll take it Give talk Someone 97 That's more said that she gets me It's true

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Look I think there's room for both.

I think there's room for both.

But in 2026, brewery owners have to make hard decisions.

The breweries that opened in the past five years, unfortunately, you, you get the short end of the stick.

But you get to, you, you get to learn faster than the breweries that opened in 20, 20 12 and 2010.

And making those hard decisions.

So I would basically say that, you know, find yourself an advisor or a coach or someone who, who speaks your language and can deliver the information in a logical way.

And look we've categorized a bunch of, we've categorized a group of brewery owners on the call today.

We talked to a lot of breweries that have their numbers dialed in, folks.

I mean, we, we, we do, we we have some.

It's, it's not, it's not an industry-wide issue.

it's the majority.

But we talk to some people and they're like, yeah, yeah, we're good.

We have our, we either have developed our own software.

We, we use this software, we track these things.

You're a great reminder, but everything is, is hunky dory.

Like we're, we're chugging along.

And, and we love to hear that.

We love to hear that because that tells me that some of these, these folks are gonna do well.

McFleshman's: Someone in their background though probably had some sort of expertise in that forethought or that thinking because it truly is a skill or training Yeah And you know I I appreciate Decker your your thought about like well it's boring but it's boring to you because that's the beauty of you know when you specialize when you spend more time kind of focusing in on learning a certain thing you most likely like it one would hope if you've you know put the time in to really learn you know gain that domain knowledge and I think that that's one of the fun things about working with folks who really do subspecialize like you know I will never I was on an airplane and telling someone that you own a brewery or or a chemistry professor I always have to choose which one I'm gonna say depending on who I'm sitting on next to with the airplane Like cause one conversation's gonna keep going and the other conversation's gonna just tank instantly And I was like I'm a chemistry professor And the dude was like oh that's interesting I wrote the 1964 tax credit oh God what was it It was some sort of like um just the piece of paper that everyone filled out It was like a 10 99 of like 74 And he was so proud of that And I was like dude you really love this Don't that Yeah I was fascinated by this man And then I started talking to him and he is like I don't wanna talk to you anymore but I think we all live in our own sphere We do And I passion is is finding that passion Right Um and I think that's

one of the beauties of I mean that's why we've got Emy running the tap room because good God is she passionate about hospitality Um in in different contexts I'll say you need to open a brewery with someone that knows business someone that knows brewing someone that knows welding Yeah Someone that knows knows all these different things you actually said you're like you can teach a welder to brew Oh yeah I'll hire a welder any day and teach em to make beer You know it's the same kind of thing Yep And I likewise I think that that the businesses that you mentioned before about like they at least have their stuff in order if one of em has got to be an accountant cause all of us come from different backgrounds Very few are actually raised in the brewery Yeah Except I mean there's my 7-year-old is an exception But anyway I digress I would hope that you know people do find passion in the numbers Yeah I I'm not saying it's like breaks in the sheets so to speak Like it's not like boring but like if you it's like it's gotta be a hard sell for mm-hmm The certain creative brain where like you know Chris you find looking at the numbers and finding what matters most in a brewery like super super important That was this one person it's like a game He said yeah it's gotta be it's like clue you know it's in there somewhere We just gotta find it

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

McFleshman's: And then you need you need to have a you need a receptive audience too The brewer that hired you needs to be able to listen to you looking at us too When I say that yeah Emy is also shaking her head vigorously on

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

That's totally true.

We've had some really successful relationships and then we've had somewhere they think by hiring us, it's like, all right, we're hands off.

We're we're good to go.

Well, it doesn't work that way.

We're, we're not on the ground.

We can only lend so much.

We can only lend so much from, from a distance being virtual, but we can lend a lot.

We just need execution.

And, and there's that, there's an issue there between information and execution.

Right.

There's a, there's a industry-wide issue where we've actually started changing our consulting from chasing the rabbit to, Hey, we're gonna focus on three things over the next 90 days, and if those three things are change, the toilets.

rise

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Wash the floors and reupholster the seats.

That's all we're talking about for 90 days.

Right.

But on meeting three, it's like, Hey, we're gonna launch a seltzer sparkling waterline.

And we're like, Nope we're focusing on the three.

So we always bring it back to a focus and accountability and execution because that that's, what makes the change,

McFleshman's: So true Are we are we all like interest We're we're reflecting Are we Oh my God That's where this pause is coming from From I'm like what's the top three Oh there's so many I've got a sheet of 75 projects going oh my all time And you oh my God I'm looking at over your shoulder You actually wrote that where you could where anyone else could read it You min Oh well no no no You you're mistaking that I am making it small enough that it can fit on one sheet Oh that's what it's it's it's like the cheat sheet you get for your your test and you just seeing how small he you're mistaking that as being that I was going for legible

we cannot talk

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yep.

McFleshman's: One of the things that I I

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: I just,

a daily

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: I'm sorry to interrupt, but just a, I don't even know if you want a quick tip on, on all those tasks, but I would, if

McFleshman's: against me

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: a sheet full of tasks, I'm breaking them down into what can be, what's gonna take two weeks to complete and what it's gonna take anything over two weeks to complete.

And I'm putting those in two different piles, right?

all of them are over two weeks, then got a longer word ahead of you.

But if, if you can knock out some in, in a two week time span, then you re complete 'em, remove 'em off the list, and then you start working toward the longer ones.

but that's kind of a general rule for us in our office.

McFleshman's: Yeah And when and when it falls off the bottom of the sheet maybe it wasn't important to begin with or important enough to for your bandwidth available to you So Chris you've got a you've got a podcast of your own where you talk about you know marketing strategy leadership and like doing the the wholesale thing what is tell us just the a little bit about your podcast and what we could learn off of off of that

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

So it's called the True Craft Podcast.

It's taken many forms over the years, but the latest is just a conversation between myself and a brewery owner, or a someone who, director of ops within a brewery.

And the topic is whatever's passionate about them.

Right?

And so lately we've done some really good, the, the latest episode was a killer, killer episode about Warren Bondy from beer marketeers, and he also owns a brewery in the panhandle of Florida.

So.

He walks you through step by step on what they do to double down on tap room hospitality.

the party doesn't end there, right?

It, it piggybacks onto the next event, and that piggybacks onto the next event.

And he walks you through how they do that, and that's just one of their marketing channels.

So we'll talk to people like Warren.

Long time ago we had two, two different episodes on food.

One from Gabby Blanco out of Buxton Brewing, and then from Michelle Tressler out of hinterland Brewing in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

And master masterclass is on, on food programs.

You know, they, they both have their own unique, completely different styles of food.

I forgot you guys are down the street from the,

McFleshman's: I was about to say yeah the I was I was inland uh yesterday Yesterday literally I was little beer or two days ago Yeah Yeah Two days ago

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Nice.

Did you see Bill or Michelle or they weren't in

McFleshman's: Oh yeah Oh yeah Had had beers with Bill on the top of the brew deck Yeah Bill actually offered Bobby the job as a brewer at Hinterland the day that Lawrence offered him a job as a visiting physics professor and he had to choose between the two And I was like wow what hard problems you have

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: yeah,

McFleshman's: He chose the the professor gig for just the year but that's another story Anyway sorry So you were so the food that they were talking about

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: yeah.

Yeah.

So that's just another example of episode.

What I, what I try to do with the show is, is to folks that can make an impact on, on other brewers and, and those are the ones that kind of just stick out.

We've done many marketing episodes, we've done a couple food episodes, and the rest are, like you said, on leadership or.

I'll get sometimes get my other finance geek buddies on, and we'll just geek out on finance and accounting and talk about what's, what's going on in their world, what's going on in my world.

So it's a nice hodgepodge of, funny story, total digression.

McFleshman's: Love it

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: The podcast started, y'all seen hard knocks?

The H-B-O-N-F

McFleshman's: Oh yes

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Okay.

McFleshman's: Yep Sorry Resident football narrowed over you I was like sports things Sure Maybe it's like a it's like a reality show They they follow the camp the NNFL team through a day one a training camp through making all the cuts to the 53 man roster in like week one So it's it's like behind the the scenes ball Got it Football Yeah Sweet

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: So that inspired me to bring on a resident.

A resident co-host for a season nine episodes.

And over those nine episodes, I would talk 30 minutes with the resident co-host, and then the next 30 minutes we would invite a guest to talk about the same topic after three seasons and nearly four strokes of trying to organize all this and schedule all this, I was like, I'm not doing this anymore.

This is insane.

But there are three seasons with resident co-hosts and a ton of topics that we talked about.

So we could hear from the same co-host each year, each episode, and then get an outsider's point of view.

McFleshman's: Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: it was fun.

But now we just do buddy.

Now we just do the straight up conversation.

McFleshman's: I think it's one of the challenges of cause we've run this podcast now for quite a while and it I don't feel like we talk enough about I mean we talk a lot about beer which is good cause that's our domain but also like there's so much more than running a brewery than just beer And I think it's funny that you mentioned toilet seats earlier or toilets and like that's one of the things that Bobby and I say when someone will ask like yeah so what do you do for the brewery I was like well technically I clean the toilets too Like there there's like there's so much that has to be done to running a company and then not just a brewing company any kind of company I think I we Amy and I actually were on Chris's podcast recently and that came up that I used to put on all of our business cards Everyone everybody ended with janitor was a janitor Everyone had that as part of their job

United States where

McFleshman's: Yeah Really wear all the hats Yeah You really do and so I think that that's kind of where our conversations always they kind of go scattered because there are infinite number of things that we have to do and hats we have to wear running a brewery so what go ahead Chris I was gonna I was gonna just pan out and ask you what the rally cry for you is for brewers because we're cause right now we're we're all kind of circling in a in a beverage industry now and we're forced into food and we're forced into this and that and the other what's your rally cry for all of us little guys figuring out as it's changing as fast as it as it is

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: So embrace the change, embrace the change, and, and understand your numbers before you make a decision.

No more decisions on emotion or feel, really validate the decision, whether that's a new style, whether that's a second location, or third or fourth location, whether that's buying new equipment.

That's a hot topic with me these days.

Buying, expanding equipment.

Validate

McFleshman's: Just at Bobby

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah.

McFleshman's: Yep You can tell what sphere I come from Oh my God

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: you're not alone.

You're not alone.

McFleshman's: Although in all fairness

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: telling

McFleshman's: sometimes just show up and be like guess what I bought for this off Facebook marketplace Best social media website So team know your numbers Agreed One Bobby's like I'm a freak in the sheet I'm sorry I can't get over that I love that T-shirt

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Bobby, on our, on my podcast, we talked about your software.

Can, can you discuss that?

The software you developed?

McFleshman's: Ooh well we're missing a there's another person we haven't met yet that's gonna turn this into a gooey app So as it is right now it's just it's absolutely just linked sheets It's more about the functionality than it is the appearance and I think it comes from the school of hard knocks having done this My friend now I'm gonna interrupt you jump in what it really comes to So Bobby is a programmer so when did your mom sign you up for programming lessons Which is funny Oh my god Lessons We're going we're talking back that far We're talking Ms Doss y'all Oh God It's like 19 91 89 Surprised It was the nineties Honestly it was in 89 Anyway but for his PhD he wrote code for basically projecting or predicting what the spacecraft casini was gonna find around Saturn And they the spacecraft went out to Saturn it took its data and then Bobby wrote the code to simulate what it should find And if they match that meant oh they know what they're actually looking at And if it didn't match it was kind of concerning I am very much making this lighted hearted but In the end to be a computer programmer from a foundational level you have to be really forward thinking And we're talking like Grandmaster Chess you're thinking 25

moves ahead And that's what Bobby has done in these spreadsheets He has linked things and he's like okay I know that this number's gonna be necessary in 25 days And so he's got this code that can like call that number in this one particular way and so so it's a little bit of my background I guess Yeah Layered in there And it's not normal I should say because I work with a lot of different individuals have various level or skill sets when it comes to spreadsheets And you have and what's funny is the the code that you're used to working with cause you programmed in Fortran For those that don't know it's old what else did you 55 77 Yeah What was your code Your code was in Tran Yep Oh yeah So I but that's sort of my credentials as far as how programming itself goes but as to how I've applied that logic to this industry I didn't even know the the problems to be solved until I dove in Yeah But you you impose differential equations to like project and predict different market growth for sure Yeah There you go Anyway but the the nuts and bolts of it iHeart math y'all Yeah

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: In other words, you working on demand data?

McFleshman's: Yes I can I totally yeah Now it's all built in there but we're not utilizing it as as I'd like to but it's all like she said I'm thinking forward Yes But that's also like it just so it's a so decker back to what you said about like your like the the creative side This is where like the math geek meets the creative side because there's so much beauty and creativity in mathematics that I think that that's one of the things that Bobby has then implemented into some of these programs that he's written Yes So you that's an incredibly kind thing to say I think I think so I'm I'm just taking this in right now Math also doesn't lay that many compliments down I think that was a compliment if I'm reading it right which about the mathematics it's beautiful We've taking everything so damn personally Alison Hart's math yeah we'll get together someday and I'll give you the lowdown But yeah you could see the differential equations They're pretty they're pretty cool It's not even it's I mean you don't need a sledgehammer to drive a nail You need the right tool for the job And I've learned over time which which things we don't record or utilize and those go by the wayside

And the

McFleshman's: So I'll develop new tools to do this that and the other And I'm I'm keenly aware that there are very few breweries that understand their the industry and their business the way I do our under understand our own business because of the tools we built here and the team we have here They're all involved with keeping our data cleaned up And that's an ongoing you know how this goes It's a managing process but once you've trained people that's that's priceless

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Yeah,

McFleshman's: Right

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: I, I think there's.

I know.

For, for our team to do our job, rely on certain pieces of software, right?

And, and these are your standard, what you see at the conferences and really what we're trying to extract is a baseline cost of good sold or yield percentage or accounting numbers.

So then we can plug it into our data model and say, look, you're doing well here.

You need to improve.

if you're talking about taking that a step further and working on material resource planning and demand data and sales and stuff like that, I mean, that's the big unlock buddy.

That's, that's huge.

McFleshman's: Yep We're gonna have beers eventually We're gonna have beers over this I'm gonna ex I'm gonna pick your brain and hopefully vice versa There you go Alright Chris how do we how do we find you if we're looking to get more information about all the things that you can provide for uh these breweries

Chris F. | Small Batch Standard: Sbstandard.com is our website.

That's where you can learn and, and contact any of us.

McFleshman's: done Thanks for doing what you do!

That's gonna wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer The show is produced by David Kelso with music by Sarah Lund Huss Be sure to join the Facebook group to connect between episodes and support the show over on Patreon where you can get uncut episodes access to specialty brewed beer and more Until next time please remember to respect the beer