Oral history interview with David Hamme, 2020

Richard Cox: So to start, could you please say and spell your name for us.

David Hamme: I'm David Hamme, D-A-V-I-D, H-A-M-M-E.

Richard Cox: Great. And today is Wednesday, September 30th, 2020. I'm Richard Cox talking today with David Hamme, if I pronounced it correctly, of Lost Worlds Brewing in Cornelius as a part of the World Crafted NC project. So to start, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

David Hamme: So name is David Hamme and I've now lived, I guess, in 16 cities. North Carolina's been home. I grew up here and then moved away and went to college elsewhere, but eventually came back. But by training I'm a consultant. Last 30 years I've been working as a management consulting. My primary focus is on industries that are kind of stagnant. And how can you re-engineer companies 00:01:00to give them breakthrough growth? A lot of times that's looking at how they present themselves to the customer, how they treat their employees and the culture that they build around their employees. And then how do they operationalize all that?

David Hamme: So I've written a book on that topic and still do that a little bit on the sides, but really came into brewing because I wanted something different. And I kind of looked around and said, "I don't want to be traveling as much. I want to be home for my kids." And brewing kind of to me was ripe for some innovation in the industry. So at that point, jumped in full force and have been working on this project, until we opened this past may or this past April.

Richard Cox: So I'm going to probably jump ahead a little bit, because of a couple things you said, and I think they tie together. Number one is that you've in the past worked with industries that are stagnant. And I think a lot of people, at least at this time would say brewing is sort of a booming industry. 00:02:00So that's interesting to me, but also you were talking about which ties into what you were saying. I think that the brewing industry is ripe for innovation. So would you mind talking a little bit about those two things that might actually be one and, in your perspective, how that comes together?

David Hamme: Absolutely. I mean, I'll draw a lot of parallels to brewing to what I saw in the financial industry. You have a lot of small like savings and loans that will come up and they'll get acquired by big banks. And I think you're seeing that in the craft brewing industry as well over the last couple years is, you see these craft brewers, they get successful, they get some distribution, and they really just start getting running and then they get snatched up. So when I look at the numbers, every year they talk about how much craft brewing grows, but what they don't calculate, include in that calculation a lot of times is what about those companies like Wicked Weed that had been acquired by larger companies and what is their growth at that point as well.

David Hamme: So from that perspective, I think the industry is, I don't want to 00:03:00call it stagnant from that perspective, but it's beginning to funnel that same model I see in that financial institutions. For craft breweries, I think the unique element is so many of them look and feel the exact same, whereas community banks might really tailor themselves to an audience. You walk into craft breweries to a large extent, and you're going to see the same chalkboard where they write up what beers they have. The beer's going to be kind of hit or miss. You're going to see not a whole lot of branding goes into it until they really grow to a certain level. So for me, looking in the industry, I said, you know what, there's really an opportunity here because with the exception of very few in the craft brewing industry, you don't see a lot of them who have decided that this is what our brand is. This is our guest services model, and this is how we're going to be successful and make ourselves different from the competition that's out there, just in your local community.

David Hamme: And that is kind the benefit of the craft brewer is just, I hate to call them competition because like no other industry, this is a very collaborative industry, but we do to some extent, want to differentiate from the 00:04:00other craft breweries out there because we don't want three craft breweries in the same community looking and acting and creating the same exact beers. You want some differentiation there because we kind of all win when people say, "Cornelius, North Carolina's a craft brewing destination. Let's go there and spend the day there and visit two or three breweries."

Richard Cox: And so how did you first become interested in the brewing industry?

David Hamme: Well, I love that opportunity to get into something where you can really kind of make a change. And there's so many pauses about the industry in terms of what I talked about the collaboration with other breweries and how I can walk into most craft breweries a day and say, "Hey, I really love this beer. What moles did you use? What hops did you use? What yeast did you use?" And how willing they are to share that information. Or if you have a problem, I mean, our brewers have been doing this for 25 years and he takes phone calls almost on a daily basis from someone saying, "Hey, I have a stuck mash or I have this issue, I'm smelling this or this stove isn't working the right way." And we're 00:05:00happy to help. So that in itself is something that's really interesting to me is having worked perhaps in 50 industries during my consulting career.

David Hamme: Craft brewing is very unique from the perspective of how collaborative and cooperative we are. And the fact that we have a guild and we work together and we approach problems together and we solve things, and just about anything, and that's really unique. The other thing is, as you said a little bit earlier, it is an industry that's ripe for growth and for change. And that excites me. I mean, I don't want to go into an industry that we're a commodity and we're just kind of getting by. What you can do with beers is completely left to your imagination. We're brewing today a smoked amber. I don't think people have brought a smoked amber in this area for a while, but we're really excited about that. People will quit doing pumpkin ales, we just did a pumpkin ale and it's fantastic.

David Hamme: So those are things that are fun. And I guess the last thing I'll say about this, I love the opportunity to compete and go for awards. And as a 00:06:00company, we're cheering ourselves on, we get excited about this. Our staff gets excited about this and we just went to the North Carolina Brewers Cup and came back with four medals. And just how excited our whole team is. I mean, it was a victory for all of us. And everyone, we really kind of shared elation. Look at what we did, this is ours things, and we're proud of this and we're proud of what we're putting out there on the market. And sometimes that's hard to get in a lot of companies today.

Richard Cox: So tell me about those awards and medals.

David Hamme: So we won four medals in total, we won three golds. We won a gold for our lighter ale euchre. We actually won the bronze in that category as well for our wheat beer, which we call Emmer. And I'll tell you about our names of our beers a little bit later. We also won a gold for our sour, it's a Berliner Weisse. We won a gold for that. And then we had a Helles lager that we won a gold for that as well. All of our beers, we have two selections or two groupings of beers.

David Hamme: One is what we call our basecamp beers. Our basecamp beers, and I 00:07:00hesitate to use the word flagship, but it's kind of what they are, but we equate to imagine going to Baskin-Robbins and most people buy these five, six flavors. So you want to see them all the time. Our basecamp beers are tied to those five or six flavors of beers that we think we have enough of a diversity there that someone will find something they like in those six styles.

David Hamme: Then we have our adventure series. Our adventure series, they're all named after adventurers. And those are kind of seasonal or limited release beers. And to be honest, some of our experimentation with the intent that they might become a basecamp, if we find in our demographic that people want that beer enough.

Richard Cox: Well, congratulations. That sounds amazing.

David Hamme: It's been fun. It's really been a lot of fun for us.

Richard Cox: I didn't interrupt, David. I think I interrupted you though.

David Hamme: No, I was going to say all of our beers have a story to them as well. So like you take our Helles lager. Our Helles lager is named for Clara 00:08:00Stinnes. She was a German race car driver and actually was the first individual to circumnavigate the globe in an automobile. And this is early in 1900s. So it was quite a fit at that point, but we also have our Amber Ale named after Mark Twain. People don't realize all the exploration that he did and the travel he did around the world, and even his friendship with Nikola Tesla. So we love to bring in these unique historical facts and tie them to a beer. And a lot of times we'll tie that flavor that taste to, or what we're trying to communicate through that style, through the naming.

David Hamme: So Mark Twain, obviously, a very established American writer, our Amber is a very established and it's what you expect to think. You've just seen out the good book and you want to drink something like our Amber that has that little bit that bold taste to it, but not overwhelming, but it's a sipping beer. It's pleasant to sit there and sip it while you're reading a book. So we're evoking some of the emotions that we think our guests might have by drinking 00:09:00that beer in the naming of it.

Richard Cox: That's great. So what actually led you to open Lost Worlds this year. This year?

David Hamme: Yeah, it was this year. We opened up in May just for to go. And then as we moved into April, we kind of could do 50% capacity per the governor's orders. We started this about two years ago and I wasn't sure which direction. I was just kind of exploring different industries and saying, "What's next for me?" Just a little burnout on the corporate world and all the elements there that it's just a changing world. It's not like it used to be. So looking around industries kind of on craft brewing, because I've been home brewing for years. I've been home brewing for close to 25 years, experimenting with stuff and really kind of enjoying it. I still even now I have a 15 gallon, an old system in my basement that will still brew on occasion, just because it's fun. It's fun to experiment.

David Hamme: But craft brew gave me that opportunity to experiment, create a 00:10:00business, and just being able to differentiate ourselves. And it's really those elements combined together. So it's you know what, this is an opportunity, this will be fun. I want to, whereas consultant, you're creating a service, with a brewery you're creating a product and you can really kind of put your heart and soul into creating a product that you're proud of and creating a guest experience that you're proud of.

David Hamme: And so Lost Worlds from day one we had three strategic tenets. Our first one was we wanted to create great beer. And so for me, that meant the proof point is, are you winning awards and are people loving your beer? And so we hired the best brewer that I could find. And we hit off philosophically from day one and that's been a great relationship.

David Hamme: DG and I are partners in this in the perspective of he has opinions on everything. And I want to hear those opinions on everything. So we work really well together. The second thing is we want to create a brand. Our tagline is find new adventure. But if you walk into our tap room, it doesn't look like a normal craft brewery. We have pictures, and artifacts, and relics, and travel 00:11:00posters on our wall. And it comes down to everyone has that adventure or travel story that they want to tell, that they're excited about. And so we want our tap room to look like a turn of the century explorers club.

David Hamme: It's when air and steam travel will allow people to travel more around the globe. They could bring these artifacts and these relics, and these pictures back from their travels, and they'd put them on the wall of the explorers club, and allow everyone to kind of hear their tales, see what they see, experience what they experience. We want to be that way for our guests. We want to be a little aspirational, kind of like when you walk into an REI and you walk down, you see the kayaks and the climbing ropes, you're like, "I should be doing more of that stuff." Of course, I never do, but you should be doing more of that.

David Hamme: We want our beer to be aspirational, so people come and say, "You know what? I was at Lost Worlds last week and I saw someone talking about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I want do that one day." And that's what we want to bring out. And so it's our stories of our beer. It's what's on the wall, it's the whole thing. That's all of our brand. And then the third thing we want to 00:12:00build communities. And for communities for us means we have a yoga club, we have a running club, like a lot of breweries do, but we're going to host an archeological conference in April, a bunch of archeologists going to be coming down and sharing some of their stories from the field with us as well.

David Hamme: We're also very closely connected with an organization called American Foreign Academic Research. They take pre-collegiate kids and send them on archeological expeditions around the world for two weeks. It's a great program for the kids, but we get a lot of learning from this as well. And this kind of changed how archeology operates in some areas of the world. So that's extremely, if we could spend an hour talking about that one, but these are the types of things that we want to bring into our tap room. Opens people's eyes, they see new opportunities. And so we're offering, encouraging the traditional stuff, the run clubs, the card games, all that type of stuff.

David Hamme: But we also want to bring in some elements or a little bit more didactic and also kind of encourage people to say, "Wow, I've never heard of 00:13:00something like this before, that's pretty cool."

Richard Cox: And it really seems to tie in with what you've described as your brand and how you've already attached to a brand and idea early on, and you're having these groups as well. And it all just sort of builds upon one another. It's really interesting.

David Hamme: Absolutely. I mean, we have archeologists stopping us and wanting to talk about some of the things on our wall or wanting to just kind of share like, "Hey, I'd love to be involved. How can I do that?" And COVID kind of limits what we can do today for those things, but in the future, I think it's a lot of our opportunities for us to partner with different organizations to bring that into our tap room.

Richard Cox: Absolutely. So what would you say is your role at Lost World?

David Hamme: So my business card says general manager and innovator. And the way I think it is, I want for us to have the policies and procedures. So operationally, we won without a glitch and we do that. We have a guest services model. We have our core principles for how we want to treat each other and how 00:14:00we want to interact. But I look at my roles more than anything is getting butts in the seats. I'm responsible as much as anything for making sure that we're fresh, new, we're trying new ideas, having new types of events. And we're constantly challenging ourselves to innovate. We have kayaks and events in our brewery, where we sit down and actually talk about, "Hey, let's walk through the guest experience from the time they get out of their car till they walk into the brewery, till they use the restrooms, they order beer, they're sitting down, they're interacting with other people, and see how we can make that better for them."

David Hamme: And we're starting to do those same types of things back in the brewery as well. That is not a space where I'm as well versed as our brewer's been doing this for 25 years. So typically he says something and I listen because it's a smart thing to do. But over time part of my role is to challenge him as well to say, "Hey, how can we do better? What more can we do? How can we be unique and create beers that really differentiate from the market?"

Richard Cox: Awesome. So why Cornelius?

David Hamme: So Cornelius is our home. It's where we live, but I also think it was a little bit of an underserved market. Cornelius is 77 kind of intersects it. And you have kind of the east side, which is the old part, and the west side, which is off Lake Norman. All the breweries in our area are kind of in industrial areas and warehouses over on the east side. On the west side, there's a lot of housetops and it's more retail districts and there was nothing there. So we're actually housed in a former Blockbuster building, Blockbuster video. And the way we set up is I walked through the first time and I said, "It's too small. This won't work." I told the landlord. I said, "Hey, you got a whole side parking lot here. If you let me have it as a beer garden, I think I can make this work."

David Hamme: So to my surprise, he said, "Sure." And that gave us 3000 square feet outdoors, we've kind of covered over the pavement, put up lights and 00:16:00everything. And it's fantastic. It has the old hedges from the Blockbuster kind of separated from the street, and there's trees there, nice, great tree line. So it kind of doubled our space almost overnight. The facility itself is like 4,800 square feet. But we've been creative in terms of how we spaced it and worked really hard with the archeologist to make sure every space was used as appropriate as it could be. But we got a lot of efficiency out the facility, and Cornelius, there's a good level of people with disposable income in the area, we catered to Lake Cloud crowd.

David Hamme: A lot of our beers are a little bit more secessional to hit them, but Cornelius has just embraced us. I mean, I can't say enough about how much support we've gotten from the community, from the town leaders, from the mayor, from the town council, to the chamber of commerce, to the rotary club. Everyone has come and really tried to help us make sure that we're successful.

Richard Cox: That's awesome. So my next question is sort of what was Cornelius like when you opened, because that's just a few months ago, although I'm sure 00:17:00seems like years. And well, maybe you've been planning for years and one of the things you also said was interesting is you felt that Cornelius time was underserved, which I think might tie into that question of what was Cornelius like at the time and sort of to give people an overview of where you are. So what's Cornelius like?

David Hamme: Well, Cornelius is that small town that I don't think has an iconic destination per se today. And as we started thinking about moving into Cornelius, and I think it's arrogant to say it's the iconic location for everyone, but we wanted to create an icon location for people who wanted something different. We have all the chain restaurants are here, and there's some local restaurants as well, but a lot of them look and feel the same.

David Hamme: We wanted to create a place that you walked in, you felt like you were someplace different. It's why people go to Orlando and visit Disney World and Universal. They want something different. We're bringing a little bit of 00:18:00just a touch of that here, because you don't typically associate Cornelius with explore as an archeologist, adventurous, but it has attracted a lot of people who are of that mindset.

David Hamme: We have the former, one of our beer tenderers, was formerly kind of one of the adventure guides for REI and lived their trips around the world, their hiking trips in that. We have another guy that's hiked up and down the Appalachian Trail. So Cornelius before I don't think had that, but by just kind of creating this, they've started to come and collect around us. And we are building a huge community of people who are interested in coming and saying, "Are you guys going to do trips in the future? I would love to go on one of those because I'm really interested in learning about the Maya down in Yucatan," or whatever it might be.

David Hamme: I don't think Cornelius had anything like that before. And I don't think we're that iconic destination for everyone, but I think we are filling a gap, particularly in that side of Cornelius that there wasn't something like that previously.

Richard Cox: Great. And so, I mean, and you've talked about your branding and the explorer's aspect of what you're doing. So, but why did you settle on the actual name, Lost Worlds?

David Hamme: So Lost Worlds to us means like lost civilizations. So I like to describe it as kind of Jules Verne meets Jacques Cousteau. It's kind of these people who are going out and exploring the world and finding lost worlds, lost geographies, lost civilization. It's all those things blended together. And sometimes those lost just means that we've forgotten them to history.

David Hamme: I spent last, not this last summer, but the summer before that, over in Macedonia and digging around what was the school that Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Well, there's so little that's known about that area because we think of Greece as a very old civilization, which it is, but so many elements of that civilization over time have been forgotten.

David Hamme: So Lost Worlds to me connotes that we're helping to identify some 00:20:00of those lost parts of our history, lost places, lost civilizations, whatever it might be. And it just kind of all blended together because you think Lost Worlds, and I think people can think about some Jules Verne's books like Mysterious Island or Journey to the Center of the Earth. That's exactly what we want them to feel.

Richard Cox: And so how would you describe Lost Worlds to people who are unaware of the brewery? I mean, because you've talked about what it looks like. So someone like, "I'm interested in your brewery," what's it like?

David Hamme: That's a good question. I think when we talk about our brewery and what it is, we say, you know what, we're first and foremost a brewery. We have to have great beer. We have to have... But we want to have beer that speaks to you, that makes you think beyond the beer and makes you think about the world and what you can do in the world. We want to inspire you to get out and do 00:21:00things, whether, and you define what that is. We're not going to define that to you, but we're laying out some options and you can figure that out on your own, you can find your own adventure.

David Hamme: But it all starts with, you know what, let's have that simple conversation when we sit down and we map out our plan for what's the next great thing we got to do. What's that project? So as much as anything, I want us to be aspirational and really push people to do what they're not doing on their own. It's kind of an oasis from the craziness in this world that we have today. But saying, if you're here, relax, rest for a moment, but then where are you going to go next? Let's get it going.

Richard Cox: And goodness, as we've talked about the theme of Lost Worlds a goodly bit, could you talk a bit about what you see as the mission of the brewery other than make great beer.

David Hamme: Our mission is to create happiness. We want people to come in, sit down, have a beer. And to be honest with you, we'll push them to try a couple different beers. But we want them to find something they're comfortable with and 00:22:00then get into their element and then decide what they want to do next. And it's as simple as that. We just want to create memorable experiences.

David Hamme: When we talk about our guest experience model, we have really four facets to it. First one is, is everyone safe? The second one is, are they comfortable? The third one is, are we creating a memorable interaction with them? Are we having discussion? Do we know their name? Do they know our name? Do they know that we know what types of beers they like when we're trying to get them something? Then our fourth facet is when you're done with that, get ready for the next guest. Just got to flip it on and turn on and go to the next one. So as much as anything, it's about putting people in their element and creating happiness.

Richard Cox: And that seems to tie in really closely with one of the things you said earlier about a focus on more recessional beers as a part of Lost World's portfolio as well.

David Hamme: Absolutely. Now you nailed it. I mean, that's part of it is if they come in and we cold crash all of our beers. You pick up most of our beers and 00:23:00they're going to be clear. You're not going to get the haze bumps. And that our goal is not for you to have one beer and leave. Our goal is for you to sit down, have a conversation and hopefully have two or three beers. And the beers we brew tend to be that way. We don't have anything. I think our highest ABV right now is about 7.2 and that's for an IPA. And then we have a porter at 6.5. And then from there, they're all in the fives and fours and even a couple in the threes.

David Hamme: Probably if you talk about our flagship beers, we create a beer that I'll call it a boat beer. It's our Euchre Golden Ale. The intent there is after you mow the yard, you're exhausted, you want a beer, but you don't want something that's going to fill you up. We build Euchre to be exactly that beer. You're on the golf course, you don't want to get filled up. We had a professional brewer came in not too long ago and he sat down and he is like, "I could drink a hundred of these." That's what we want with that beer. It's very simple, light. It's also a very profitable beer for exactly that reason.

David Hamme: So that's kind of one of our flagship, others is the IPA. And that 00:24:00one is the 7.2 is because we want to cater to those people that want that IPA and they want a little bit more of that ABV versus those people who want that quick refreshing, crisp beer. So we cater to both.

Richard Cox: Great. So it is 2020, and we've talked around the good bits. So I think I know a lot of this conversation's going to be, but yeah, so we can broaden it a bit though as well. So what challenges did you face while you were opening Lost Worlds?

David Hamme: So the good thing is someone asked me a question, what was a big surprise about opening Lost Worlds? And to be honest with you, something you really don't want to say in public, but I will say anyway, is that the inefficiency of our government really impacts when you're starting small business, particularly at craft brewery. You probably are having to deal with 10 or 15 parts of the government. None of them are turnaround, none of them have clear directions, none of them are easy to work with. So that to me is probably, I don't want to say it's the biggest thing, but it's a major learning for me is 00:25:00it's amazing as many people up in craft breweries as they do. I'm a professional at doing that type of work with my consulting work. And it's just a ridiculous amount of work to get to that point.

David Hamme: But having said that, the big dragon in the room is COVID. I'm probably the only craft brewer owner that you'll ever meet that actually had a business plan with a cash flow statement in it and a risk management plan. The risk management had 12 items in it, not a single one of them said pandemic. Having to navigate that terrain, and in some ways it's ironic, but I think COVID has actually helped us and made us strong in the long run simply because we got slowed down a little bit on construction.

David Hamme: But I think everyone's bought a house before and you know you have to make good selections and it's like, all of a sudden you turn around in one week, oh, you have to do this, this, this, and this. We were just talking about the general room layout the other day. So it comes pretty quickly. That allowed 00:26:00us to stretch some of those decisions out a little bit and to really think about it. And I think that kind of played into the design of our facility. But the other thing that allowed us to do is that we were very meticulous, and to me and who we hired. A lot of people had been laid off, so the pool was pretty talented of applicants.

David Hamme: So that was helpful, but we could get people with very diverse skill sets. Like we hired our tap room manager and already he opened a facility that was serving close to 5,000 barrels a year. So he had some experience in that. He hired the whole team for that. So he knew what he was looking for.

David Hamme: So he came in with a plan. Our brewer was how they experienced. He came in with a plan. And having the ability to get those types of individuals allowed us to learn a lot very quickly. Then obviously COVID came. And we were stuck. Part of our brand commitment had been that when we opened, we were going to open up with enough beer so we didn't run out. So it wasn't one of those things where I see quite frequent, like craft brewery opens up and they have 00:27:00eight beers listed, but, "No, we only have three." Well, if we have eight listed, we want to have eight. So we had an excessive amount of beer brewed.

David Hamme: Our first pivot is me calling a grocery store and saying, "Hey, I got all this beer." You guys want to buy some because there were indications that in order for us to stay in business and operational, we had to be selling to a grocery store. We had to be operating kind of as a factory. So we wanted to pivot quickly and get into that. So we brought in a mobile can and we canned beer like in our first week, and then canned again, sold half our beer to the grocery stores.

David Hamme: At that point didn't plan on canning immediately, had planned to be very tap room focused, but that was out the door. The cat's out the bag, we're going to be canning forever now. It's just part of the reality of our business. Once you start, once you let that monster in, you got to keep feeding it. So we have pivoted a number of times of saying from, "Hey, we're going to open this as a tap room. No, we're going to can, and we're going to be distributing, so 00:28:00solely to go beer," to changing how we're operating for that and then changing to, "Okay, we're taper room focused, but we're still also canning as well. So we're doing both those things."

David Hamme: So the team has learned to be extremely flexible. And I think the fact that we've gone through this, it's like a fraternity pledgeship. We've been through some tough times together. We've bonded through those times. And we learned how to operate and work as a team. And the culture, we've been very deliberate, intentional in terms of how we build it. And people have accepted it and bought into the concept. We're very detail focused. We're very focused on continuously innovating and continuously improving. And we've built a team that embraces those principles. And I think that's make us stronger in the long run. So a lot of challenges came out of gate, but it has made us a better company. And I think in the long run, we're positioning ourselves for success.

Richard Cox: And you call it a pivot. But honestly, it sounds like major shifting has had to occur. You're being very polite, I think.

David Hamme: It's revolutionary adjustments every day.

Richard Cox: Yeah, exactly. It becomes more of a pivot in your mind at that point. So eventually of course, restrictions have got... As of this recording have been getting lesser and lesser, how has that been for you insofar as you had this major pivot to distribution, which I can only imagine and feel free to talk about if you like that. That's it's flipping a business model on its head in a lot of ways in a short amount of time, but now you're also easing back into the tap room. So how is that?

David Hamme: So it's been challenging. And I think the big thing is part of our commitment to our employees is once we hire you when you're hired in. And so our intent was never to hire people and then let them go or anything. There was no temporary employees built into the model. And that's important because we haven't fully staffed even today. We get invited to events, and events seems like a little thing, but you know what, you're going to send two people out 00:30:00there for a day and that's two people around the tap room, so do you have enough to do both those things? Or if you're distributing, do you have enough people to distribute and to go out there and pound the pavement for you versus work in the tap room? None of these things, we can't do all these things. And none of them is success in and of itself.

David Hamme: So we've been very aware that we are understaffed today. We don't have enough employees to do all the things that we quite frankly want to do, but that's by design. But so we're all playing multiple roles. And the challenge with that is, is we can't do every festival. We can't go out and hit every customer that we would want to hit. And we're not going to do that for the foreseeable future until the restrictions have eased, so that we have enough of a engine through the tap room, then it makes sense to those things.

David Hamme: So I would say we're playing in a lot of different places. And this even kind of goes with how we're doing our advertising. I mean, we're not really promoting ourselves a lot because it comes Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and 00:31:00even Sunday now, and every table in our brewery is taken both inside and out.

David Hamme: I mean, we've been very blessed and very fortunate from that perspective. If we advertise more on that, we're turning guests away and that's a bad experience. And the same way, if we start distributing more aggressively and start really revving up the sales engine, we may not have enough beer for the tap room at this point. And we may not have the people to get the beer to the customers in the timeframe that they want. So we're being very deliberate and doing very, I'll call it a soft touch on all these things. If there's places that we think, and right now I'll be honest because of Euchre, we've been pushing with country clubs and golf courses. It's a perfect beer for them. If we focus on that, we can get in there, that's not competition for us.

David Hamme: People go to a country club for a different reason than they go to a brewery. So to us, that's a very common sense approach for us. We're also not selling a lot to bottle shops because we don't want to be canning so much, then we hurt ourselves. So all these decisions that we're doing are being 00:32:00deliberately maintained to say, we don't want to impair our ability to deliver an outstanding experience, but at the same time, we don't want to impair our ability to deliver experience. So we're playing both sides.

Richard Cox: Great. And you mentioned this, touched on this earlier, but what role do you feel breweries such as Lost Worlds are playing in Cornelius and changes that may be happening in Cornelius?

David Hamme: So I think in all small town, America is always kind of looking for some identity. And Cornelius is no different than any of 200 cities or small towns across North Carolina. And that it had some history there, but it's kind of new south and it's grown, it's changed, and it's evolved. I think breweries do a couple things that are pretty great. One is obviously the employment and the tax revenue. I mean these towns that because we are heavily taxed. The other 00:33:00piece of it is I think it gives you that location to have events and to go. And it's a little bit of the culture of your community, kind of it bubbles up through the breweries. I mean, we're right next to the lakes. I mean, and Cornelius is close enough to the mountains and that there is an adventure of spirit here.

David Hamme: We're playing to that. And I think we're helping to give the town a little bit of its identity, and not just us, but other locations as well, we're giving the town's identity. We're that spot you stop to get some beer and then you head up to the mountains or you head over to the racetrack, or whatever. You head down and watch a football game in the city. We've become a place, I believe, and I think this will continue to be true of Cornelius that it's a great place to live, but it needed great places to hang out, to hold events, those small businesses and that type of thing. I think we're providing that for our community.

Richard Cox: Awesome. So, given everything we've talked about, what would you say is your average work week?

David Hamme: So average work week's a really tough one because quite frankly, I'm wearing many hats. But in a given week, I'm in the brewery a lot, because I think if you're going to really kind of understand your business, you have to be there to go to gambols, you would say in lean terms, you have to be on site. You have to see what we're brewing. You have to understand how the movement is of not just of product, but also people around the facility. And to me, that's key to innovation. The first thing is if you want to solve any problem, 90% of your time has to be spent really kind of defining what the problem is and what are your options. So I spend a lot of time doing that. These days, just because we're growing so quickly, I spend a good amount of time sourcing materials from different places here and there.

David Hamme: And COVID has made that a lot more challenging. I mean, we kicked off a cash program about two weeks ago and we had already gone through and decided all the providers for this, we had about 10 providers, and this was done two, three months ago, went back to call these same providers and they're not in 00:35:00business anymore. So we have to source stuff from China or other locations. So we're having to be nimble. Things that normally might be a lot easier are a little bit more challenging this day, because you don't know about... The questions we're always asking now is, "Hey, what's your lead time? What's your minimum order quantity. What are the options that we can do to get this to us?" So it's just changing.

David Hamme: So a lot of my time to spend sourcing, working through those types of issues, sitting there, and learning to be honest with you, and then continuing to deliberately build the culture that we want to have with our associates.

Richard Cox: And you mentioned some examples earlier, like the archeological conferences, is there anything you'd like to add to what you said earlier about the types of fundraising and community engagement work that you all engage in?

David Hamme: Yeah, so I'm routinely surprised by how many requests I get for me to donate free beer to people or to support this fundraiser, they're all over the place. So we knew that was going to happen or thought it might happen. And 00:36:00kind of our risk management was we created something called our community partners out of the gate.

David Hamme: So we have four organizations. I'll be honest, I'm on the board of two of them, but one of them is the archeological organization I told we're helping them to promote. They actually have a big case in our brewery that showcases their different dig sites and what they're finding and tells the story. We're helping promote them. We're also working with a group called Shirley's Angels and that's breast cancer awareness, and we're helping to host events with them. We have one called Pat's Place Child Advocacy Center. So they deal with sexually and physically abused children and how they get them through the legal system, and then how you help them rehabilitate thereafter.

David Hamme: And then we also have one, which is a animal shelter. And each of these organizations at one time or another, we give them some space, they can hold board meetings or team meetings or retreats or whatever, but also we've helped them throw fundraisers as well. And our contribution is obviously our area, but also we have built the PR engine and helped get the word out about 00:37:00their event and then helped them host the event. So we're going to continue to do that. And we've tried. We were really kind of founded with the idea that we were going to be giving back to our community a lot.

David Hamme: So we've hosted events for Christmas and July with low local Jeep club. We had a barbecue event a week ago for Pat's Place where they couldn't do their traditional event, but they could have people come and pick up their barbecue packages and meals, which was donated by a local restaurant. And they'd come to our brewery and buy beer, sit down and talk about as well. So we're going to continue to do those things, but the invite list is long. I mean, before you and I talked this morning, I had one from like a wheelchair tennis players, and they want to host an event at our location and I've got someone who wants to do an angel tree with us.

David Hamme: So we'll do our best to support as many organizations as we can, but we're also not going to just open the doors to anyone. I mean, that has to 00:38:00be a legit organization. And we did a blood drive on Sunday this week. So, I mean, we're doing a lot of these things, but I think it can kind of become overwhelming and detract from your guest experience if you say yes to all of them. So we're being careful to who we say yes to and who we don't

Richard Cox: Great. Sure. That makes perfect sense. So how do you see Lost Worlds growing in the future?

David Hamme: So we are a lifestyle brand. And to me that means we just got invited by an organization who would be a great partner for us, and they want to have a beer garden at one of their corporate facilities and asked if we would do it. And I was like, to me, it's perfect. It definitely fits with it. I think, our goal is to expand, not by distribution. I'm fine with some level of distribution, but the fun part of it, of what our brand is and why I think we're unique is we are an experience space, lifestyle brand. And so to me, it'd be great for us to have, if we build another brewery, I want to build it someplace where there's hiking trails, where people can go down and sit by a waterfall or 00:39:00something like that.

David Hamme: Or I would love ideally to have like a facility off the Appalachian Trail where the hikers come up and we have like a cold room, they can spend the night there, that type of thing. We have the brewery up top and then have the hikers come and tell their story to an audience during the day. So I want to look for locations and that has something unique in and of themselves as well, something inherently adventurous about them, that we can capitalize and help to project that outward a little bit. So I don't know what that is and where that is. We've started looking, started to talk about, and we've had a lot of fun just exploring and looking for it. They have the new trail in North Carolina, the mountains to the coast. It'd be great to have a facility out that someplace.

David Hamme: You have bikers coming up, you have hikers coming up, they sit, they have a beer, we give them a lunch, that type of stuff. Maybe have some barracks where they can spend the night, get a shower or something like that and go the next day. But something like that would be really cool to me. I would love to do something like that. So it's less about building the next billion 00:40:00dollar company. I really don't care about that. It's more about building lifestyle breweries that we would enjoy going to and frequently. If we don't like being there ourselves, there's no reason for us to do it.

Richard Cox: Makes perfect sense. So we're going to talk a little bit about the broader brewing industry now. So what would you say... What's it like to work in the craft brewing industry today?

David Hamme: I absolutely love it. We talk about the camaraderie and the collaboration and that the ability like my nephew is one of our brewers. And for him, he's been learning a whole craft, but the excitement of holding up a product and saying, "I created. I helped to develop this recipe." And that's something that's really beneficial, I think. And a lot of your self worth goes in your job. But if you can look and see a product that show on the shelf and people are enjoying it, that really comes home. I mean, that's a very positive experience.

David Hamme: The other piece of it is it's like going to a buffet concert. No one's upset at a Jimmy buffet concert. Everyone's having a blast. People come to 00:41:00a brewery with smiles on their face. It's great to work in that type of environment. Contrary to what you might see sometimes in movies, people don't go to the brewery because they're all upset and they're feeling down, they go there because they want to be happy. And I love being around happy people. So the brewery is like the perfect place for it.

Richard Cox: Have you seen any changes in the brewing scene since you first got interested in it or started getting into the business?

David Hamme: Well, COVID has already created a lot of changes. Obviously, breweries are financially strapped and a lot of them are going to full distribution. And I think the other thing about COVID, it's requiring them to operate in a unique manner from what they did previously. It's not just a sanitizer, but it's employees wearing masks. It's keeping things clean. It's creating an environment where people feel safe. And it's requiring a little bit more than just stand behind a bar and dish out beers. It's getting out there and interacting with the tables. I mean, we had thought we'd be bar service. We have a table service and a bar service plan in place now.

David Hamme: So I think the industry has continuously evolved because of COVID. But the other thing is there's a lot of potentials industry, but there are enough breweries out there now. And there's enough of a critical mass that the barriers to entry are falling. It used to be if you were a new brewery, you had to get milk tanks from England or something to brew your beer in. Now there's a half dozen companies that will create tanks of any size for you and build any types of system for you. And so I think it's gotten easier to get in the industry from that perspective. And there's a lot of information available. The sharing nature of this industry.

David Hamme: I mean, before I even sat down, I did my business plan, I could read 10 business plans from companies that had done fairly well. That wasn't there five years ago. There's a lot of things that have happened that this has created college industries around the brewing industry, which has really allowed I think us to push the metal a little bit harder, the pedal of the metal a little bit harder and get a lot more bang for what we're doing and do things a 00:43:00lot quicker.

David Hamme: Mobile canning. COVID came and mobile cans have exploded on the scene during this type of thing, because there's been a need for them. That wasn't there. So, I mean, my ability to can might have required me to buy a canning system five years ago. So there's a lot of things that the industry's maturing. And I think it's getting a little bit more professional from that perspective as well.

David Hamme: I mean, I went to the craft beer conference in Denver a year ago and I was kind of just remarking to someone about how I didn't see as much of the... You still see the beer, you still see the flannel everywhere, but you begin to see guys dress up in ties at the conference. So the professionalism of the industry is increasing. And I think it's partially because it's not something that's done back behind the garage anymore. It's now coming into the mainstream and becoming a part of these communities that we operate in.

Richard Cox: Do you see any trends or is there any way you see the brewing industry going in the next three to five years, which that's hard to predict?

David Hamme: I think you got to see a lot of consolidation. The financials of a lot of these breweries are not good, and not just because of COVID, but just because they were created on shoestring budgets. I think you're going to see either them merging with other breweries and trying to get some economies of scale and perhaps increasing the professionalism, become a little bit more effective. I definitely could see that happening because COVID has done some damage. It's definitely done some damage to the industry.

David Hamme: In the long term though, I think what we'll see is... I think you're going to start to see more super regional players than what you have today, just because to get the investment to do that and to have the structure and to have a marketing person, to have a salesperson, you're going to need to be a little bit bigger what they are today. So I'm going to see some growth there. I think you'll still have... I'm not saying you won't have those small town breweries like Lost Worlds today, but I don't think they're going to be as predominant as they are today. I think you're going to see more super regionals 00:45:00than that.

David Hamme: The other thing is I think along that same line, the collaboration, the cooperation's going to increase across the breweries. I mean, we've done several collaborations already, but I'm noticing with the way things are going, we have a brewery that we're partners with and they've been buying our beer because they can't make enough of their tap room. And so we're now brewing with an eye towards saying, "Hey, we got to give them five kegs off this brew, off this term."

David Hamme: So, I mean, I think that's going to continue is to see, we're going to have to find better ways to work together for those of us who are smaller to find ways to keep up.

Richard Cox: Do you see any trends in the industry that you either think are really interesting and like, or any that you dislike or bother you?

David Hamme: The one that's kind of... I don't know if I called a trend, just kind of it's a current that's interesting is the brewers and their desire to brew some styles, but not other styles. And it's kind of interesting because I 00:46:00didn't anticipate coming to this industry and seeing that brewers be so vociferous of like, I want to brew these things, I don't want to brew these things. And I begin to see that. And it's surprising because to me it's always been, you brew what the customer wants, but I've had some brewers say, "Hey, I'm not brewing this style. I don't care." I'm just like, "Okay, we'll see how that plays out for you, but, okay."

Richard Cox: Sounds like that garage mentality you were mentioning earlier in a way.

David Hamme: Absolutely.

Richard Cox: Interesting. So I'm especially curious about your answers since you are so well traveled. I think you said you've been in 16 cities. Is there anything that you see as unique about North Carolina or Southern beer?

David Hamme: I'm not sure. When I was looking at doing this, I traveled out to Colorado and spent some time and then traveled up north to Ohio and over to Pennsylvania. And Colorado to me just seemed like a place where they were making 00:47:00really great beer, but they were very experimental. Like let's try these different things. And I can't speak for all North Carolina, but I'll say Charlotte in particular has become very experimental. There's a lot of brewers who are trying some really... And it goes back to my previous point, they're brewing what they want to brew, they're brewing some outlandish stuff, but somewhere just absolutely fantastic.

David Hamme: I mean, I went to the Queen City Brewers Fest this year and walked around and I was just blown away by the diversity of beers that we're getting in this area. So I would say in terms of, as I travel the country and I see different areas, we're getting as good a diversity of beer in this area as anywhere in the country. I mean, just the experimental nature of these brewers and it's sours and I want... I'm getting the seltzer and kombucha and all that stuff. But I mean, even just in the draft beer, the things they're doing are phenomenal in terms of their creativity.

David Hamme: And that I think is kind of when we talk about North Carolina beer, that's the thing that pops to me, is it's very experimental right now and you 00:48:00got some really good brewers out there and it's been impressive.

Richard Cox: Do you currently have a favorite beer from a North Carolina brewery other than Lost Worlds or any you've had recently?

David Hamme: So I'll throw two out there that I thought were kind of unique. Tyrannosaurus Mex by Lost Province in Boone, just a very unique flavor for a beer. It brought to me like a... NOLA brewery actually created a cucumber gose a couple years ago, a lime cucumber gose. And I tried and I was like, "Wow, this pops with flavor." Well, I think Lost Province hit that with this one. The other one that I liked and I like it, because it's just so consistently brewed is Good Morning Vietnam by Wooden Robot. Just that little coffee on the blonde ale, but they hit it so perfectly. They calibrate it perfectly and they brew that so consistently well that I got to get my kudos to them. They do a fantastic job with it.

Richard Cox: Awesome. And I know the answer to this from what we said already, 00:49:00but what would you say is Lost Worlds flagship, basecamp or signature beer at least now?

David Hamme: Yeah, it's definitely Euchre and Vista at this point. But the one thing that I'll say about us is another pivot is we've kind of gone away from just basecamp was all we were initially with the to go business to kind of, we have a rollout, like they're almost always on Tuesdays. We have a new beer release. I wrote out a pumpkin and we rolled out in Oktoberfest and we did a Schwartz beer yesterday and they're fantastic. And I think these are beers that those three beers, well, this week I'd sell all the rest of them. I mean, our pumpkin to my surprise last week was our number one selling beer, almost double the next closest one, not including the Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest is right up there with it, but those two.

David Hamme: So it's good to see that seasonality is coming in, but we're keeping it fresh and those beers are becoming really popular. Yeah.

Richard Cox: Do you have a favorite beer from Lost Worlds right now?

David Hamme: So I'm really excited about our smoked amber that it was just brewed today. So I can't touch on that, but our Amber is something special. I really enjoy that. Just a very nice drinkable beer, but just kind of has that malt through it, that just has a little bit of that no taste, it's phenomenal. Octoberfest came out really well as well. I love that one. And again, the pumpkin, I had two of those last night. I can't just say just one because it's like saying what's your favorite fruit? Well, I like an apple sometimes, a banana and orange sometimes. We've created enough diverse beers, I think, of high enough quality that I like them at different times.

Richard Cox: And when the spring beers roll around, I'm sure you'll have a completely different answer too.

David Hamme: Absolutely. I'll have a lawnmower, or a Kolsh or a Shandy or something in there, so absolutely.

Richard Cox: So that's all I had for you. Is there anything you'd like to add? Is there anything you'd like to add to it?

David Hamme: No, I enjoy this because it forced me to think through these things, these answers, sometimes they're subconscious, they're coming back 00:51:00there, but they come out, but I hope you got something worthwhile out of this too.

Richard Cox: Oh, no, absolutely. It's been great. Thank you so much.

David Hamme: Absolutely. Now we're a little bit of a different burden and that's intentional, but we're having fun with it. We really are. I mean, I can't say enough great things about our team where we're going, but I'm excited for what's ahead. Once COVID's done, I'm really kind of seeing take the training wheels off us and let's see what we can do with this brewery.

Richard Cox: Great. Thank you so much.

David Hamme: Absolutely.