Oral history interview with David Gonzalez, 2020

Richard Cox: Okay. To start, can you please say and spell your name?

David Gonzalez: Sure. My name is David Gonzalez, D-A-V-I-D G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-Z.

Richard Cox: Okay. Today is Monday, October 5th, 2020. I'm Richard Cox talking to David Gonzalez, director of brewing operations at Lost Worlds Brewing in Cornelius, as a part of the Well Crafted NC project. To start David, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

David Gonzalez: Sure. I grew up just outside New York City on Long Island. I did everything in my life according to plan. I come from a long line of teachers, my mom, my sister, my aunts, uncles, grandfather, and I went to college to be a high school social studies teacher. I did that and I remembered sitting in 00:01:00college graduation thinking, "I don't have to be a teacher if I don't want to. I could do whatever I want to do." And I went into teaching. I went into teaching, and then I got involved with beer while I was teaching. That's sort of my background. Yeah.

Richard Cox: You mentioned getting interested in beer at that point. What actually led you to becoming interested in the brewing industry?

David Gonzalez: When I graduated college, before I started my teaching job in the fall, between May and the fall I had to get a job to support myself. There was a store, a mom and pop bottle shop/beer distributor, near where I grew up in Greenlawn, New York, Long Island. It's called Blue Bell Beer. They had a sign in the window said, "Help wanted." So I walked in and got hired as a stock boy, whatever, really whatever needed to be done, deliveries, cashier, paper work, whatever. Me and a friend ... This time was in the mid-'90s. It was May of '95, 00:02:00and we had all different kinds of beer on our walls. And I would go home every day with a couple of different beers and just try them.

David Gonzalez: And then, fast-forward a little while, I don't remember the exact day. I was in Port Jefferson, Long Island, near where I went to college. I went to SUNY Stony Brook. I was wearing a sweatshirt from a local group pub, called James Bay Brewing, that I had somehow got. I was at a coffee joint, and I turned around with my coffee, after I got it. I'd started to walk out the door and the guy behind me was wearing the same sweatshirt. We started chatting BS, and it turned out he was the head brewer and owner of the brewery in town, called James Bay Brewing in Port Jefferson.

David Gonzalez: So he said, "Oh, you like beer? You're starting to get interested? Well, why don't you come down and spend a day with me?" So I did. I got hooked, and I was spending any available time I had there. I had three jobs, at that point, working seven days a week. I was teaching, and I was refereeing soccer, and helping out at a brewery. So I did and I got hooked. They convinced me to go to Siebel and I went from there.

Richard Cox: Were you do any homebrewing? Sounds like you jumped right into brewery stuff.

David Gonzalez: I pretty much jumped right in. I did a couple of batches. I was living with my parents at the time, right out of college, and I did about two, or three batches of beer. They would hate when I would homebrew because I would stink up the house, and all that. But I think I did literally three batches of homebrew, and that was it. I just kind of jumped right in.

Richard Cox: Wow. That's ...

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: I mean, there's a couple of people, but it's sort of rare to jump right into professional brewing. Isn't it?

David Gonzalez: Yeah, like I said, I got a little bit of a punt going to helping out at James Bay. And then they were talking about Siebel, and they had both gone to it. And now they convinced me to go, and I did. I got hooked from there on in. Said, "I'm going to give up teaching," which dropped a lot of people's jaws because I had my dream teaching job, "and I want to go make beer for a living." Yeah, it was wild.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Do you think bypassing that homebrewing thing has affected your approach to brewing at all?

David Gonzalez: I don't know. Through the years, I've dabbled a little bit. Not really brewed on my own, to go to someone else's house and help them brew, or I briefly worked for a homebrew outfit as their operations manager, for a few months. So I mean, I don't know if it helped or hindered me in any way. I don't know. It's a great question.

Richard Cox: Yeah, it's an interesting ... I mean, because they're very different, I guess is where I'm getting there, so I didn't know.

David Gonzalez: They're different and they're similar. The process, for itself with, is fairly similar, but the approach can be different. I remember years and years ago, my wife and I got invited to a friend of ours house, to go homebrew with him, and really to teach my wife. And I kept saying, "Well, what about this? What about that and sanitation? This and this and this." And he looked at 00:05:00me and said, "Dave, go downstairs to the keg. Go right there and get yourself a beer. I'm teaching your wife how to make beer." So then there's a different approach, but the process is pretty much the same.

Richard Cox: You actually mentioned that you were educated at the Siebel Institute of Technology. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

David Gonzalez: Yeah, definitely. In June of '97, I went to Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago. I took their short course in brewing technology. At that point back then, it was basically a very intensive two-week program. What they do in a 10-week, or at the time, what they did in a 10-week, but in a two-week consolidated program. We went from 7:00 in the morning till 6:00 at night, hour lecture after lectures, all lecture days at this point. And that depended throughout the history of Siebel, whether it was lecture based, or on site.

David Gonzalez: And then, now, the program they have is half in Chicago, half in Germany. But the one I did was there. It was good. I had guys from Miller and 00:06:00Coors, obviously this was pre-merger, Heineken, Guinness. We had a guy from Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but that was his two-week vacation for the year. He just wanted to learn about beer.

David Gonzalez: But it was real intense. A lot of it, I had only apprenticed, really, at a brewery for a few months, a small brew pub, so a lot of it, way over my head. But when I got back, ever since ... I saw the books. I'd still look at them, yeah, every few months, or whatever, and I could relate it to it, at that point. So it was good, and it was, yeah, very informative. And-

Richard Cox: Yeah, I'm sure it was. How was it actually ... Being from New York, how did you end up in North Carolina?

David Gonzalez: Being made, actually. James Bay ended up closing down, and the other brewer, basically the head brewer, had moved to Maine to open a brewery there. And I followed him. I went up there and lived up in Maine for about a 00:07:00year, worked for a couple of small little breweries that are now defunct.

David Gonzalez: While I was up there, I had family in North Carolina, family in Raleigh and Winston. So I had been down here doing something, and I had met some brewers at a beer festival, or something. And I got a call one day from a guy who used to be the head brewer at Carolina Beer & Beverage in Mooresville, right when they were getting started. They were the offshoot of SouthEnd. And he says, "Hey, why don't you fly down. I'm not saying the job's yours, but come on down." So I did. They didn't necessarily give me an answer right away.

David Gonzalez: And at that point, the person, the girl I was living with, and I had made the decision to move down to North Carolina. She went to school in North Carolina, so we decided to move down. And while I was down for that interview, I looked at other options. I remember walking into some sort of a homebrew store, talking to some people. I said, "What kind of breweries are around here?" He said, "Well, there's a Rock Bottom uptown, but I really don't 00:08:00know if you want to work for a chain like that." So I walked into Rock Bottom, and then I actually got hired on the spot.

David Gonzalez: So there, then I started as an assistant brewer there. Their assistant brewer was leaving, and I came in. I started there in August of '99, and I was there till September of 2010. I trained to be a head brewer fairly quick. It was just a matter of where and when they were going to move me.

David Gonzalez: The girl and I split up, so I could ... No responsibilities except myself, and it was, "Where am I going to end up?" They had told me D.C., Miami, Memphis, St. Augustine, Florida, Atlanta, all these other locations, and it just turned out I ended up staying in Charlotte. They moved my head brewer back to Chattanooga, where he was from, and I got promoted and stayed there until September of 2010.

Richard Cox: Awesome. We're going to stay on this Charlotte in the 1990s and early 2000s for a minute.

David Gonzalez: Sure.

Richard Cox: Because you mentioned, first of all, you mentioned a homebrew store 00:09:00during that period, which I'm sure that was very different than it is now. How many breweries were there in the Charlotte area in, say, the earlier part of that timeframe?

David Gonzalez: Yeah. I came down here in '99. There was Rock Bottom. Hops had five locations at that time. I think Johnson's, yeah, Johnson's was open. That was really it. I think Dilworth had just closed. I think there was one called Queen City, or something, that had closed prior to me moving. So there weren't a lot. Oh, SouthEnd was there, SouthEnd Brewery. That was it.

David Gonzalez: And then, systematically, all the Hops ended up closing. Johnson's closed. And at one point, I think Rock Bottom was the only brewery in Charlotte city limits, for a couple of years, till eventually Four Friends opened and Old Meck opened, and that, and went that way. Yeah.

Richard Cox: Yeah, and Rock Bottom was a brew pub, right? Am I right?

David Gonzalez: It was a brew pub.

Richard Cox: Okay.

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: And especially at-

David Gonzalez: [crosstalk 00:10:00] chain.

Richard Cox: Yeah, at that time, having a brewery that was not a brew pub. I don't know much about the local Charlotte laws, but so probably you couldn't do it because you ... at the time.

David Gonzalez: A brew pub at that time?

Richard Cox: Well, a brewery without the restaurant attached, so well, it's then, it's just a straight brewery. I don't know if that was ...

David Gonzalez: Yeah, you could have. We had Johnson's didn't have a restaurant.

Richard Cox: Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, okay.

David Gonzalez: I don't think they had a taproom, though. I don't think-

Richard Cox: No. That's probably.

David Gonzalez: ... [crosstalk 00:10:32] what happens.

Richard Cox: Yeah.

David Gonzalez: We had taproom. Yeah.

Richard Cox: Yeah, because I know, in this area, that it wasn't till like 2014 that the first sole breweries without pubs, well, without pubs, without restaurants attached, for sure, actually able to be in like downtown. So it's just where it is in the state and the local laws. And I just ...

David Gonzalez: Well, I don't think at that time, in the early 2000s, or even the late 2000s, I don't think there was really a market for it. Breweries were production facilities that were sending their beer to supermarkets and 00:11:00restaurants and stuff like that, so there wasn't really, I don't think, the market of the taproom until later on.

Richard Cox: What do you think led to all the number of brew pubs that were in Charlotte, at the time, closing down around Rock Bottom? Because it [crosstalk 00:11:17].

David Gonzalez: I think some of it was probably mismanagement. I know Hops was owned by a huge corporate conglomerate that eventually phased out all their locations. I think that was it.

David Gonzalez: Charlotte is an interesting city. I love it, but it's interesting where the hot, new thing is the hot, new thing for six months, or so, and then you move on. I remember I put on a specialty beer on tap there, like one of our seasonals. It was supposed to be on tap for six weeks, or so, and two weeks into it, people were saying, "When's the next beer coming out?" "We still have another month of this one on." So it's very going to be place to place.

David Gonzalez: And then, there weren't many places uptown, until like the 00:12:00Epicentre and such came in, it wasn't a lot to really do uptown. Rock Bottom was the place in the late '90s, early 2000s, to go. And then as Charlotte grew and grew and grew into all the neighborhoods, South End and all those other neighborhoods grew, I think that the population, not demanded it, but there was a need for it, for more breweries.

Richard Cox: Yeah. So as it was growing, do you remember around the time the Pop the Cap law was passed? What was Charlotte around that period like? And how did it change immediately? We kind of know what's going on now, but what happened?

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: How it affected?

David Gonzalez: Pop the Cap happened in what? '05, I believe. I remember it happening. I remember before that, I couldn't brew a beer, sell a beer, anything that was higher than 6% ABV. And with it popping and us allowing to make beers 00:13:00that were higher ABV, well, able to bring in beers, more and more stores, retail shops started opening and carrying it.

David Gonzalez: There was more flood of new beers from other areas, whether it was Europe, or other areas of the country, or even brewing in Charlotte, itself. We started brewing a Maibock and then a Winterbock at the pub, the restaurant brewery. So I think it's opened up people's eyes a lot, well, and taste buds a lot to more styles of beer. I think that helped generate the craft beer movement in the Charlotte area.

Richard Cox: Do you remember one of the first beers you brewed after you could legally brew beer over four [crosstalk 00:13:45]?

David Gonzalez: Well, I was at Rock Bottom for another five years, and everything was pretty corporate. We weren't allowed to make beers unless it's corporate approved. So I don't think I did any high ABV beers. I think they brought in probably the Maibock.

David Gonzalez: And also, Rock Bottom, this location, the Charlotte location was owned by Gordon Biersch, when I worked for them. It wasn't part of the Rock Bottom chain. There's a whole corporate story behind that. Basically, the Rock Bottom, Charlotte, the Rock Bottom, Atlanta, were owned by Big River out of Chattanooga. They built Atlanta, they built Charlotte, and right after Charlotte was built, Big River and Rock Bottom [inaudible 00:14:26]. And they franchised the name.

David Gonzalez: Until right after I was hired, in '99, Big River bought Gordon Biersch, and they changed their corporate name to Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Group. So we were under the Gordon Biersch umbrella, at that point. They were trying to incorporate more lagers.

David Gonzalez: We brewed a lot of lagers throughout the year. We had a couple, too, that were full-time core beers, but they brought in more. So I think they brought in the Maibock around the springtime, and the Winterbock in the winter. And then, when I left in September of 2010, right after that an investment 00:15:00company came in, bought Gordon Biersch, bought Rock Bottom, and merged the two companies together in this huge conglomerate.

Richard Cox: Wow.

David Gonzalez: Yeah. Oh, yeah, Old Chicago was a part of that group. And then, a few years ago, Texas Logan's Steakhouse bought Gordon Biersch, and they changed their corporate structure to that. It's a whole long story.

Richard Cox: Yeah, and everything just gets bigger and bigger.

David Gonzalez: Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Cox: More [crosstalk 00:15:30]. Yeah. So you're at Rock Bottom through 2010. I assume after that, other opportunities in Charlotte were coming up and you were moving around?

David Gonzalez: Yeah. I left there. I took a break for a few months. When you spend 11 years plus at one place, people told me that that was a career in itself. It was. It wasn't my decision to move on, but I saw it, and it actually worked out for the best for both parties. They were going through a lot of change. Eventually, that entire staff in Charlotte got replaced, over the next 00:16:00year, year and a half, or so.

David Gonzalez: It was just it was time to move on. I just didn't see it. I couldn't move up anywhere higher in the companies, and I had become stagnant there, so it was time. Within a few months, I got job offers, and it just wasn't going to work. Initially, Foothills immediate.

David Gonzalez: I was also on the board of directors for that NC Craft Brewers Guild, well, all the NC Brewers Guild and I. I remember just going somewhere to use their Wifi and sending the rest of the board members, there were four other board members, telling them, "Hey, I'm no longer with Rock Bottom. I don't know what the status of my board membership, at this point." And I hit send.

David Gonzalez: And about three to four minutes later, my cellphone's ringer. And I looked at it. It's Jamie Bartholomaus from Foothills Brewing, who's a good, good close friend of mine, even before I went to work at Foothills. So we start chatting. They wanted to hire me to be their pub brewer. It wasn't going to be right at the time. I also had another opportunity. Alternative Beverage 00:17:00homebrew outfit, which has their main warehouse location in Belmont, has a Charlotte location, and had one in the Lake Norman area, was opening another one. I had a chance to ... They were opening up the one we ... They wanted me to go to Mooresville, actually. I had an opportunity to go in there with potential ownership, eventually, maybe taking over the business down the road.

David Gonzalez: So that got me back into homebrewing, so I decided that option. Plus, it was four miles, and not even four miles from my house, Monday to Friday type gig. Not really nights, weekends, or anything like that. And then, I had that option, so I opted to go there instead of Foothills because, like I said, at that time, Foothills, real it wasn't going to work.

David Gonzalez: And I was there for a few months. I was operations manager. We had a small, little pilot brewhouse that I would brew occasionally on. But I remember, one day, just sitting there and looking at all the numbers and doing everything. I'm like, "Wow, sales are stagnant while expenses are going up," and 00:18:00I said, I looked the numbers and I go, "Ah, that's going to be me, or three people we have to lay off." And the owner comes in like the next day, and we start chatting. He tells me and I'm like, "Yeah, I completely understand. If I was in your boat, I would do the same exact thing."

David Gonzalez: So he wrote me a letter. It was, wow. He said I was the best employee he ever had in 40 years of business, and it killed him to lay me off, but like I said, it was a business decision. I remember going up to New York, seeing my folks, taking like a week off. And once again, my cellphone ringing. It's Jamie Bartholomaus from Foothills. So we ended up chatting, and they hooked me in. I moved to, moved, to Winston.

David Gonzalez: So I still lived in Charlotte. We commuted. I have a wife and four boys, and I commute to Winston. I'd go up on Sunday or Monday, come home on Friday or Saturday, and after almost five years of that, it got really tiring. 00:19:00I'm staying on someone's couch, or a spare bedroom, renting a place. I mean, the idea was to move to Winston. It just never happened.

David Gonzalez: Once again, I had a wife and four boys, and I'd come home on the weekends and have to fix things that they had broken, or something like that. So I made the decision to come back to Charlotte. I love Foothills, love them to death, great people, great company, good products.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Were you in the production facility, or the pub?

David Gonzalez: I was at the pub. When I started, they were building the production facility, which is, affectionately, known as Kimwell because that's the name of the road it's on. I was always hired to be the pub brewer. The idea for me was to stay back at the pub, run the pub brewery when everyone else went off to the production facility.

David Gonzalez: The first couple of months I was there, it was just strict production. It was nonstop brewing, seven days a week, twice a day. We'd have six, or seven guys in this small, little brewery, working. They systematically 00:20:00moved over to Kimwell, and I stayed back. I got to all the fun beers. When they did the IPA of the Month program, those were all beers that I got to brew, and a bunch of specialties, not my recipes necessarily, but though those weren't on it. But I did get to come up with some of my own recipes, and I got to do all the fun stuff and occasionally brew production beers.

David Gonzalez: Jade IPA started out as a pub-only beer and it became production. I was brewing a lot of that every week. And then I remember, one day, at the company Christmas party, I'm on phone. Jamie's standing next to me. It was a Sunday night and I'm looking at seeing what I'm supposed to be doing that week. I would come up with a schedule. I'd submit it to T.L., our head brewer, brewmaster, now. And then he'd, based on what they needed at Kimwell, determine what I did at that pub. Sometimes he'd be like, "Oh, you're brewing 60 barrels of Carolina Blonde this week. You'll keep seven barrels for you at the pub and 53 barrels will be kicked off and shipped out to market." That's what I mean by that.

David Gonzalez: So I remember sitting at this Christmas party. I'm like, "What am I brewing? Jade this week." I need to get ingredients, and I don't see it on the schedule. And I go, "Jamie, is this right? I'm not brewing Jade at all, this week?" And he goes, "Merry Christmas. They took that off my plate and they moved that to the production facility." But I did other stuff.

Richard Cox: You don't sound upset. It's like ...

David Gonzalez: It was a good beer to make, just a lot of hops.

Richard Cox: And a lot of hops, yeah. But, so eventually you came back around to Charlotte and with Lost Worlds.

David Gonzalez: Yeah, I ended up at Lost Worlds after a couple of other stops. I ended up moving back to Charlotte to go to NoDa, to be their director of brewing at the new facility, the bigger one on Tryon.

David Gonzalez: I really wasn't necessarily a director of brewing. I was more into special projects, some construction-type projects and stuff like that. I started up the core program that they had. Chad did all the tours, but I got people hired for that, and I did some other projects there.

David Gonzalez: I was there for about a year. It just didn't work out between us and them, me and them. Todd and Suzie, we love them to death. They love me, from what I know. It just didn't work. It just, as much as you try and as much as good friends you are, sometimes things don't work out.

David Gonzalez: So I left there and I went to Rivermen. Well, to go back, I remember when I was making the decision to move back to Charlotte, I was at a beer festival, and Pat, the old owner of Rivermen, comes running up to me and says, "I'm building a new facility. I want you to be my brewer." And I'm like, "Okay, let me think about it." So I opted to go to NoDa, and when NoDa was ending, I ran into Pat again, and he was just building the new facility and brew pub.

David Gonzalez: They had hired a head brewer. When I turned him down the first time, I gave him a name and phone number for someone who would be interested in as a brewer, and they ended up hiring him. Who he now owns his own brewery in 00:23:00Charlotte. And then I got hired on as director of brewing, and I was director of brewing there with them. They had a small, little place. We had two-barrel brewhouse and 10-barrel brewhouse. 10-barrel never got operational. I mean, brewing on a two-barrel, it was a nightmare. And then Alex, my head brewer, ended up leaving. He opened up his own place, Lower Left Brewing in Charlotte. And I took over head brewer responsibilities, too.

David Gonzalez: There were a lot of financial issues there, a lot of stuff we didn't know about till my very end. I was laid off, as well as the executive chef, the sous chef, the assistant brewer, all within a couple of weeks. Yeah, when you let most of your upper management team go, there's problems. I mean, there was a lot of problems, financially, a lot of lawsuits that came out in the newspaper, rent not being paid for months and months and months.

David Gonzalez: So I ended up leaving there, and at that point, Todd Isbell, 00:24:00over at Liberty, had been out. He had gotten hurt and he was out for a number of months, and they had brewers fill in for him. So the brewer that was filling in for him in January of '18, '19? What year are we? '20. It must have been '19. Was a guy named Tyler Cox, who I had worked with at Foothills. So he had left Foothills and went to Connecticut and moving to Atlanta to open a brewery. He calls me up and says, "Hey, what are you doing? I'm filling in for Todd right now, for a few weeks. He's still going to be out a couple of more months. I have to leave to go to my gig in Atlanta. Are you interested in coming and filling in?"

David Gonzalez: So I did, and it helped me. It helped them. They didn't want to lose Todd. He's a phenomenal brewer, amazing beer mind. And he didn't want to lose his job either, because he was out for probably six, or seven months. So I went in and I helped them there for about two months, basically, sort of commuting. I had friends that lived nearby, so I crashed with them, during the 00:25:00week. And then that was about a two-month period.

David Gonzalez: During that time, I met the folks here at Lost Worlds, Dave and Allison. They had put an ad out, the BA for ... The original name of this place was supposed to be Seaplane. They put an ad out, and I somehow got in contact with them. They had heard my name a few times, apparently, so we hooked up Saint Patrick's Day of last year. We hooked up, Dave and I. We clicked on the spot. Our philosophies, our business philosophies, our service philosophies, everything just meshed together.

David Gonzalez: So I did consulting with them, for us, for a few months. They weren't ready to bring on someone full-time. And I guess my official first day was June of last year, as a consultant months. I was hired director of brewing, and then October 1st was actually my first full-time paying gig [inaudible 00:26:0000:26:01]. I mean, I was getting paid the entire time, but as a consultant with the contract that I'd be the director of brewing and head brewer.

Richard Cox: Oh. Awesome. Let's spend a little time talking about Lost Worlds now. What can you say about Cornelius and why Lost Worlds chose Cornelius as its location?

David Gonzalez: We felt it was, not an underdeveloped beer market, but an underserved market. We're just west of 77, about a quarter mile west of 77. And on our side of 77, there were no breweries. Bayne Brewing had been here probably about a half mile from us, for a little while. They kind of floundered and left, closed up shop a couple of years ago. But the other breweries are on the other side, more in industrial areas. We're in a great retail area. We're in a strip mall, and on one side is Planet Fitness. There's like two restaurants, another a couple of other places. Then we're on the other end of it. There's just tons 00:27:00around us.

David Gonzalez: So we saw it as kind of an underserviced area. The demographic is really nice. There's a lot of ... not a lot, but there's a good amount of disposable income, in this area. And plus, Dave and Allison live nearby. Oh, yeah, that's probably ... We chose Cornelius.

David Gonzalez: I mean, the location we have is a great, great location. It's an old Blockbuster Video that had been a Blockbuster. Then that had closed. And it was some sort of a bike shop, bike shop/gym, really weird concept. And then we came in here. I remember he shows me the place. I'm looking at it, really low ceilings, and I'm like, "I don't know. It looks kind of small, and we're going to need more storage."

David Gonzalez: But we ended up gutting it and building up from scratch in here, and so it's turned out to be great. We have a 3,000-square-foot beer garden on our side, which was parking, originally. Our landlord said, "Yep, that could be yours." It's just, it's a great location.

Richard Cox: Awesome. What would you say your role at Lost Worlds is, as director of brewing? What does that mean, I suppose?

David Gonzalez: Okay. My official title's director of brewing, but I'm also the head brewer. I'm in charge of everything on the beer side of the company, so recipe development, procuring ingredients, training my assistant brewer, beer education. Right now, I'm overseeing sales, anything for accounts that has to go out, I'm dealing with, so anything really to do with beer.

David Gonzalez: I also help with anything, really, with the taproom side, too, as upper management. And I'm an advisor to our founders about anything. They'll come up to me and say, "So what do you think about this?" And I'll give them my opinions, or even actually help. It's really, we're small, so it's my role is 00:29:00really encompassing around the entire company, right now. But really, anything to do with beer.

Richard Cox: Anything to do with the beer side. How would you ... I mean, you were involved with Lost Worlds, it sounds like, basically from the beginning. So it's not like you came in, looked around, and had to instigate any changes or anything, just came in and hit the ground. Okay.

David Gonzalez: Yeah, I was involved pretty much since day one. They had thought that they wanted to open a brewery. Dave says that me and him met at a local restaurant and had a beer. That was when the decision was finalized for them to open a brewery. They said that after they met me they said, "Yeah, we're going to do this. We're going to go ahead and do it." So I've been involved with every little step, from equipment design.

David Gonzalez: We use Deutsche Beverage Technology as our brewhouse equipment there. And there were a few reasons. We looked at a few. We looked at four different manufacturers. There were a few reasons why we chose Deutsche. But I 00:30:00was involved with the design phase of that, and I put my little spin and made the little things a little more efficient, what I've learned over the many years on how to make the brewhouse more efficient. So on that side, but basically, yeah, I didn't make really any changes because I kind of made all the SOPs, beer recipes, and all that kind of stuff.

Richard Cox: Yeah, great. You touched on this already, talking about the Blockbuster and the cycling shop. How would you actually describe the location and space? [crosstalk 00:30:40]? And I was going to say, can you tell me a little bit about the brewhouse, while you're at it, size and everything?

David Gonzalez: Yeah. The taproom, our founders side project is archeology. They really love archeology, and they're on some boards, and they do a lot of education with that. That's the whole feel. Everything in our place has a story. 00:31:00Everything in our place has a reason for it. All the décor in our place is either an artifact, or a replica of an artifact, or has a story behind it. It's then, we want the feeling of a an adventurous club of yesteryear. You come in and it's not the typical taproom. It's got a chalkboard with now, a big board with whatever on it. Not a lot of TVs, I mean, we do have a few TVs.

David Gonzalez: We're coming up with Lost Worlds Television, which is going to be one channel. On other channels, we have ... on other TVs. We only have like four, or five, six TVs, have other things on them, when it's the History Channel, or something like that.

David Gonzalez: But we want you to feel like you come in, you sit down, you're enjoying yourself and you're telling stories. All of our beers have stories 00:32:00behind them. All the names, everything carefully picked out. When we were looking at our beer portfolio, we knew we wanted light, malty, hoppy, dark, and a tart sour. So all the beers were picked out. We've picked it out to be mostly sessional styles. You could have a couple, sit and talk to somebody next to you, tell a story. That's the whole mindset behind us, outside activities.

David Gonzalez: As far as the brewery itself, it's a 10-barrel brewhouse. It's a two-vessel, so mash/lauter tun, and then kettle/whirlpool. 30-barrel hot liquor tank, no cold liquor tank. The 30 barrel allows us to do two batches in one day, if we want, which we can. We can do about two batches in about 10 hours. And then we have four 10-barrel fermenters, two 20-barrel fermenters, an 10-barrel Brite and a 20-barrel brite. Got a lot of kegs, so we don't have serving vessels, or anything like that.

David Gonzalez: We have our core brands we call our Basecamp Beers, which are beers that we'll more than likely keep on tap at all times. That's evolving too, which so new which seem what our customer base kind of wants. We might phase some beers out, some new beers in, depending on sales and that kind of stuff.

David Gonzalez: For example, I never thought we'd make an amber ale. That's a style that kind of went in the '90s, early 2000s, sort of went away, and Dave comes up to me and our bartenders all come up, "Hey, we've got in all these requests for amber ale." "What? Are you kidding me?" So like, "All right, we'll brew one." So we brewed one. It sold really well, so we made a second batch. We'll see how that goes. That might become a Basecamp Beer.

David Gonzalez: But all of our things were by design, on purpose. For example, we have two beers that are the same base beer. We do what we call our Emmer. It's an American wheat beer that we brew 20 barrels of. 10 barrels stays normal 00:34:00and 10 barrels becomes a fruited version of it. So we can do two beers and it's more efficient that way. And stuff like that. That's pretty much the brewery.

Richard Cox: Yeah, awesome. Great. And you've kind of touched on what the mission, or theme of the brewery is, with the archeology, and the sitting around telling stories, and sessionable beers. Is there anything you'd like to add to what the mission is, of Lost Worlds?

David Gonzalez: That's the mission, really, just to have the people to come in, enjoy themselves, and to grow our brand. Everything is brand oriented. Like I said, so the names of the beers are ... We have our Adventure Series, and those are named after explorers, or, and are archeological site, something like that, depending on the style of beer.

David Gonzalez: For example, we just recently started Goseck Black Lager, a Schwarzbier. Well, Schwarzbiers originated in the Saxony area of Germany. Well, there was called the Goseck circle, which was an archeological find there. So everything like that goes. But that's really it, and we'll see where we go from 00:35:00here. I mean, obviously, the goal is to grow because that's what you do in business.

Richard Cox: Yeah, absolutely. What role do you think breweries such as Lost Worlds are playing, or have played in changes that have been happening in Cornelius? And you can broaden that area, if you like.

David Gonzalez: Yeah. There's been a couple of breweries that have opened in the area of Denver, which is just on the other side of the lake. A couple of breweries have popped open. There's probably more in plans. I think our sense of community, our community around us is really involved with us. We try to do community-type events, bring in vendors and stuff, like food trucks that are not necessarily based in this area, but what our community kind of wants. We have our nonprofits that we deal with. So we're community driven, that way. We want to know what our guests wants, and such, and then grow from there with them.

Richard Cox: Great. Yeah, this will be a interesting conversation. What challenges did you face while opening Lost Worlds?

David Gonzalez: Some construction, but more on some of the regulatory commissions. We had an inspector that didn't like our mill. And with we needed a certain tag on it, and it went back and forth between our manufacturer, the mill manufacturer, to the regulatory committee, and eventually went to the inspector's boss. But the boss was like, "Just let it go through." It took a while for us to get our final CO. We had our TCO and we were able to open under that, but to get our final CO, because of this, took a little while.

David Gonzalez: Opening during the pandemic. As Dave, our founder says, he's got 00:37:00his MBA, and he says, "When you're studying for your MBA, you have all these risk managements scenarios that you have to come up with. Pandemic's not one of them." No one ever thought we'd be in a pandemic. So we've pivoted a lot. Our first day brewing was Saint Patrick's Day, actually a year to the day that after Dave and I met. We started construction. They'd started demoing in late September, early October, and we were able to brew first batch in Saint Patrick's Day.

David Gonzalez: Construction went really well, really pretty quick. Not a lot of delays at all, which was nice. I was on site most every day, during construction, answering questions to the GCs, and all that. But, so we brew up our first batch was Saint Patrick's Day, and that's the day they sort of announced everything's shutting down. "Oh, crap. What do we do?" So we decide 00:38:00we're going to fill up all our tanks and all our kegs and go from there. We didn't know how long this was going to last, or what kind of restrictions, if any, were going to happen.

David Gonzalez: We made decision, well, we could open our taproom for to-go. It was already in the plans. We had already purchased a crowler machine and crowlers. Which that was a delay too, the crowlers themselves. We would talk about we'd [inaudible 00:38:26] them to go.

David Gonzalez: At this point, we only had three full-time staff members, me, my assistant brewer, and our taproom manager. We were going to be able to handle all this, and we had said, "All right, well, we need to get our beer outside the door." So we started canning. And the canning was always in the plan, but it was probably 12 to 15 months down the road, not our first couple of batches of beer.

David Gonzalez: Luckily, our first few batches of beer turned out good, and we didn't really have to tweak anything. And we canned. We brought in a mobile unit. Our founders past life had some connections with some places, some 00:39:00restaurant [inaudible 00:39:05], and some grocery chains, and got us in there. So we did that, and then it was like, "All right, we'll pivot back. We're allowed to open our taproom at 50%." So we did that. It's been pivoting. I've turned around more times than a basketball player. I mean ...

Richard Cox: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, you say pivoting, but it's almost like you flipped everything upside down. I mean, instead of opening as a ... Well, it's a lot of places, right? A taproom, starting with a taproom, though, you had to flip into a distribution model. And just crazy.

David Gonzalez: Yeah, our model was always taproom driven. Our taproom was always going to be our number one customer. And then we knew we wanted to do it outside distribution, light, very calculated where we were putting beer. We don't want to put beer in a place that's got a 100 taps because we know our beer, the chances of one of our being poured are very low. But, so we're still 00:40:00doing that. We're still growing systematically, that way, but very calculated. Again, I always said the model was changed a few times, or was flipped a few times.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I guess taking all that into consideration, how would you describe your average work week?

David Gonzalez: I do a lot of paperwork, and then that's sort of by design. I'm a numbers guy, so I spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I do help out in the brewery. I make my assistant's day go a lot more efficiently. I'll just bring in sometimes [inaudible 00:40:40] hops, or brew sheets, or something like that, but I can jump in and brew a batch of beer, keg, clean a tank, if need be. I did it when he was on his honeymoon for the whole week, and that stuff. But it's mostly making sure that the week is going to run smoothly.

David Gonzalez: Today, I was running errands when we brewed a pumpkin beer and 00:41:00sales are pretty high. I knew they'd be good, but not as good as they are. The initial plan was to keep it on tap through Thanksgiving, and we're down to like five kegs. So I scrambled today, finding ingredients, and that was my day, today, and jumping on this call and doing paperwork on a Monday morning. But that's my basic week. Help out in the brewery, do what needs to get done, meetings, and that's my work.

Richard Cox: Yeah. You just mentioned, once or twice, about the growth of Lost Worlds. Are there any specific ways that you see Lost Worlds growing in the future, or you'd like to see it grow in the future?

David Gonzalez: Yeah. Well, we're kind of landlocked in our space, meaning that we can't really grow in this space. When we built or glycol system, we had enough room for one more glycol drop-in that we could fit one more tank. And then we could pull our 10-barrel tanks out and put 20-barrel tanks in, so we 00:42:00could grow that way. It's a Blockbuster Video, so it's a small, small space.

David Gonzalez: So we've talked about, in the future, do we want to go and build satellite locations in strategic places? That's on the table right now, possibly. We'll see where the market is in a couple years, whether or not we go the traditional route of growing, growing, and building another production facility somewhere else. I don't know if that route will take place, or not. We'll see what happens with the market, but we definitely plan on growing.

David Gonzalez: That's what our founders do there. They're business [inaudible 00:42:38] by trade, and they take medium and large side businesses. They innovate them to grow them. I mean, that's business in general. You want to grow, so yeah, it's definitely the plans.

Richard Cox: Yeah, exactly. Great. Let's shift over and talk about beer and brewing in the brewing industry for a while.

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: You already mentioned Siebel and your textbooks. What resources 00:43:00have you drawn on to help you grow as a brewer?

David Gonzalez: Other brewers. Other brewers, reading the internet is great. When I was first starting brewing, the internet was just coming about, so it was really hard to find information, but there's so much great information out there, talking to other brewers, going to educational sessions, going to conferences, all that kind of stuff, whether I'm sitting in the audience, or sometimes I'm up on stage, talking, networking a lot. It's just talking and doing your research. That's really what I use to grow.

Richard Cox: Yeah, great.

David Gonzalez: And my team, too.

Richard Cox: Well ...

David Gonzalez: And I do this. I have my assistant underneath me, and I report to our founders. But we'll sit as a team, and I'll ask of both their opinions on a beer, say, "This is a new a recipe I'm thinking of. These are the kind of ingredients. These are the reasons why I'm thinking of this beer at this time of the year. What do you guys think?" It's cooperative. I totally believe in cooperation.

Richard Cox: That's awesome. Since you mentioned recipes, how do you approach a new beer recipe?

David Gonzalez: I look at a style, so if we're going to come up with a style, and then I do my research. I'll look at the Brewers Association Guidelines. I'll look at the BJCP Guidelines, though their guidelines are a little different. But I look at those, and over the years, you just get to learn your ingredients. You have to learn what the hops do, the malts, how they interact.

David Gonzalez: I have certain ingredients that I really like to use, though I step outside that box, too. And I just, I'll do reading. I'll read up on the style of the year, if it's something I haven't brewed before, or ask someone, but for a recipe itself, I look at a style and like, what are the color, the bitterness units, the aromas and flavors? And how do I want that all and have them interact? And what kind of ingredients are going to give you that, those characteristics?

Richard Cox: Yeah. Do you have a favorite recipe that you've created, or that you're most proud? I'm specifically talking about the recipe itself, not what's your favorite beer.

David Gonzalez: The favorite recipe?

Richard Cox: Yeah, the one you're most proud of, I suppose is what I'm saying. Or a few. I'm happy to hear as many as you'd like to share.

David Gonzalez: With the Schwarzbier, I've done three different Schwarzbiers at three different breweries. At Foothills, I was able to come up with up with my own recipe there. At Rivermen, I came up with my own recipe for it, and then here. So that's probably my favorite style that I like to come up with a recipe for.

David Gonzalez: The Helles, we have a Munich Helles. I had never brewed one before. So when I was coming up with a recipe, Dave had always wanted to do a lager. He went, "When are we going to do a lager? When are we going to do a lager?" And I said, "Well, we can't necessarily do one right now because I don't want to tie up one of our fermenters for upwards of six weeks, four to six weeks 00:46:00because, well, I don't want us to be busy enough where we get caught with our pants down." So I pushed it off.

David Gonzalez: And we started stabilizing with our beers, and he said, "Well, what do you think about a lager?" I'm like, "I don't know. Well, maybe, and we can get some sort of a pilsner." He goes, "Well, what about a Helles." I'm like, "Okay." I never brewed one.

David Gonzalez: Helles is a very, very delicate beer. If there's a flaw in it, if the ingredients is off a little bit, you're going to notice it. So I contacted a couple of lager brewer friends of mine and a couple of other past mentors I had, and they gave me some ideas. I did the recipe.

David Gonzalez: I was nervous as it went on tap. And we ended up winning a gold medal for it, and a couple of people coming in, some beer judges coming and saying, "Wow. This beer is really, really, really good." I rarely pat myself on the back for a beer, and I'm like, "Yeah, it's good." There's a lot of great beers out there. So I think those two are probably my favorite recipes I've done.

Richard Cox: Yeah, and you all, well, you've taken a few gold medals, recently. Haven't you?

David Gonzalez: We did. Yeah, the North Carolina Brewers Cup was our first competition. We weren't going to be ready for the World Beer Cup, which it canceled this year. So the NC Brewers Cup was our first one.

David Gonzalez: Whenever I go into a competition, I look at the guidelines and I say, "All right, where do I think my beer's going to fit most?" So I might brew an IPA, but maybe it's a better in a strong pale ale category, something like that. So I look at that.

David Gonzalez: It's also a numbers game, too. I'll look at the statistics from the years prior, and say, "All right. Do I figure I have a chance of winning here?" We make an IPA. Am I going to enter an IPA into a category that's got 400 beers entered into it? What are my chances to win? Slim to none.

David Gonzalez: So it's a little bit of that, but with the NC Brewers Cup ... I always go into competition being hopeful, not expecting anything, and then being 00:48:00gracious, well, if and when we win something. If we don't win anything, well, there are a lot of great beers out there. There was a reason why. There was a better beer out there than ours.

David Gonzalez: So yeah, this year, the NC Brewers Cup, we won three gold medals and a bronze. The golds were for our Munich Helles, which was, okay, that was the first time I had ever brewed one, our Berliner Weisse, which I was about as shocked. I mean, it's a good beer. And we kind of cheated with that beer, too. A lot of Berliner Weisses with lactobacillus. I don't want lactobacillus in our brewery.

David Gonzalez: A few years ago, a brewer that I used to work with at Foothills, had made a Berliner Weisse there, so I had asked him his thoughts. He said, "Dude, I've won medals, national medals, for my Berliner Weisses. Put lactic acid in it. Right before you move the beer into the brite tank, put lactic acid and kind of move it, blend it up, and do it to your taste." That's what we did. It's sort of cheating, but it's not cheating. So you're getting a nice, light, 00:49:00tart beer with it, and we won a gold. So I said, "Wow, that's kind of cool."

David Gonzalez: And then the third gold was ... I can't remember. I can't remember. But I [crosstalk 00:49:20].

Richard Cox: And there's the bronze.

David Gonzalez: The bronze was the American wheat.

Richard Cox: Okay.

David Gonzalez: Yes. So they were all lighter beers. Oh, the Golden, our Golden Ale, our Euchre Golden Ale won the other gold. This is a beer that when we designed it, we're right off Lake Norman. The peninsula is right here, lots of boating, lots of golf courses. And we decided we wanted to make a really light beer. So when I designed this, it's actually lighter than the light lager I used to make at Rock Bottom, lower ABV, lower gravity. Everything was really light.

David Gonzalez: So I entered it as a cream ale, thinking, "All right, let's see how it does." It was the closest category. Cream ales are a little bit heavier. 00:50:00It won a gold. I was really happy with that.

Richard Cox: Yeah, that's awesome. So looking in your years in the beer industry, how would you say the brewing has changed, since you first got into the business?

David Gonzalez: It's grown. Obviously, the amount of breweries have grown. When I moved to North Carolina in '99, there might have been a dozen breweries. Now we're over 300, close to 400, maybe. So it's grown as breweries, themselves, and as brewers, obviously.

David Gonzalez: So then, with that, there's more educational out there, more programs. When I went to brewing school, there was only three different brewing programs out there that I knew of. Styles of beer have grown dramatically. When I first got to ... In the brewing, there were English IPAs, there were American IPAs, and that was it. And now, there's so many different IPAs out there. It's 00:51:00just, it's growing, growing, growing from that perspective. I think the people's palates have changed a lot, whereas year ago was, "What's the lightest beer you have?"

David Gonzalez: I remember a couple of years ago, I was at a brewery in the Charlotte region, and I heard a lady go up to the bar and say, "What's the lightest IPA you have?" So now they're equating IPAs to craft. And you're seeing more and more a variety of styles be accepted. It's grown in all aspects.

Richard Cox: Yeah, absolutely. And as you mentioned earlier, you spent two tours on the board of directors for the Craft Brewers Guild?

David Gonzalez: I did.

Richard Cox: And were their first vice president, if I'm correct.

David Gonzalez: Yeah. I remember at Rock Bottom, one day, and the phone rings in the brewery, and they say, "Dave, you got a phone call." I answer it, and he's John Stritch, who used to be the owner of Carolina Beer and Beverage. And I, "Hey, John. What's going on?" He goes, "We're starting up this brewers guild." 00:52:00I'm like, "Yeah, I've been to a couple of the meetings to try to get it going." And he goes, "Yeah, I want to nominate you for the board." And I'm like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, you've been brewing, one of the longest people in the state, brewing. Your knowledge is good. You have a good reputation." "What does a board member do? I've never been on a board before, of anything."

David Gonzalez: And so he explained to me, "Just say you've been on a board of something before." I was like, "All right," so I got nominated. I got elected. And there were five of us. It was Jamie Bartholomaus from Foothills, me, so I was at Rock Bottom, Sebastian Wolfrum, who at the time was Natty Greene's, Paul Philippon from Duck Rabbit, and John Lyda was at Highland's.

David Gonzalez: We were all sitting in a room, and we're like, "All right, so what do we do? We need a president. We need a vice president." I knew I didn't want to be president, so I'm like, "I'll be vice president," and they all said, "Yeah, okay." And Jamie got elected president, and we went from there.

David Gonzalez: Beginning, it was just, it was grassroots. Just we had no money. 00:53:00We didn't have an executive director. A few times a year, the five of us would get together and talk about where we wanted to go. "All right, what's the next T-shirt we want to get to sell, to make money? Do we want to do any kind of an education event?" something like that. It was really small and grassroots. The ideas, at first, well we had to write the bylaws, were to do education and grow and get the name out there for beer, and specifically NC beer.

Richard Cox: So what did the board do? I mean, I think you just explained it. You've written the bylaws. You're starting this thing from the ground up. That, it's a ...

David Gonzalez: Grassroots, we did. We did that, and then we hired a director, our first director. And then we kind of went from there. The first director was Rob Ulick, who actually ended up going to work for Foothills. Then we needed another director, so we actually had an interview process at this point.

David Gonzalez: I remember being involved with the first hiring, and I think he just like came in. Rob just kind of came into the picture. I remember being at a 00:54:00meeting. I think we were at the meeting was in Asheville. And I'm like, "Who's this guy?" They're like, "Oh, he's our director." And we, "Oh, okay. Cool," like, "Oh."

David Gonzalez: So then there were a couple of other people there. One was going to help out with finances, and one was going to help out, with someone else, which ended up being Audra. And then Eric from Mystery happened to be there. He used to help volunteer a little bit with some educational and some other things. And then, eventually, they got on some board as the [inaudible 00:54:32]. Yeah, I had a two-year term. My term ended, and then I think I was off for a year, or so.

David Gonzalez: Then I got reelected. When I was at Foothills, I got elected again. I was on the second board of directors there, and just as a board member. I had to resign because at that point, Foothills was dropping off the board. The dues were going to be based on your barrelage, and at that point, Foothills was doing upwards of close to 20,000 barrels, and their dues were going to be really 00:55:00high, and they couldn't really justify it. So they dropped off, which therefore I had to resign. And now, they're back on it and Jamie's president again.

Richard Cox: The circle. Were there any accomplishments from your time on the board that you're particularly proud of?

David Gonzalez: Getting it going, being part of the group that actually got it going and that, hiring Margo Metzger as director. I remember sitting in that board. I can't remember everyone who was on the board. I know it was Sebastian, me, Sean Wilson, Leah Ashburn and John Marino were on the board. I think that was it, at the time.

David Gonzalez: I didn't know Margo before that. Sean had recommended her apply, and I was like, "I don't know." And then we ended up hiring. She did an absolute phenomenal job. Her connections in Raleigh and with the State Fair and the state 00:56:00itself was just ... It grew the guild to another level. So yeah, I'm proud that I happened to be part of that, to go there. And she moved on. Hired another one.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Yeah, it sounds amazing. The ...

David Gonzalez: It was [crosstalk 00:56:18].

Richard Cox: Yeah, so what's it like working in the craft brewing industry today?

David Gonzalez: It's different than the olden days. It's become more of a business on certain things. There are aspects that have gone really good and have expanded, like I talked about our knowledge and being able to help each other. The camaraderie, that's something that I've always loved. I've always looked at it as a more of a fraternal-type industry, where there's competition, but it's mostly a friendly competition. But we're there to help each other.

David Gonzalez: Earlier today, I went down to a brewery in Charlotte to buy a bag of malt that I need for a brew this week, just because we don't have a malt 00:57:00order coming for a couple of weeks, so helping each other out. We have a breweries forum. I just typed to say, "Hey, does anyone have an extra bag of such-and-such," and this guy popped up and said, "Yeah, I got one." So the camaraderie, then the cooperation. Excuse me.

David Gonzalez: On the other hand, like I said, it becomes a little bit more of a business, a little bit more of sort of HR with how everything's being enforced. Beer festivals way back in the day used to be a lot of fun. Now, it's like, all right, I got to go stand there and pour beer, and I can't sample beer at all. That was always on the books, but it was never enforced. And I get the reasons why it is. I do. It's just, it's different in both aspects.

David Gonzalez: I remember a couple of years ago, I went to a brewery in the Charlotte area that had just opened. I knocked on the door, and the guy comes out and says, "Hey, can I help you?" And I handed him my business card. I worked for Foothills at the time. They had no idea I was still living in Charlotte. I just happened to be in that area, running an errand and just said, "Hey, do you 00:58:00mind if I come in and check out things?" And he just looks at me and goes, "Yeah, we open in like two hours. You could come back then." I'm like, "Oh, okay."

David Gonzalez: And just way back in the day, or even now, someone comes into my place, "Yeah, come on in." I might be busy. Go to the bar and get a beer, or I'll be with you in five minutes type of thing. And there's still that camaraderie amongst, but there's a little bit more and more of the business aspect, which it has to be, too. I get it.

Richard Cox: Yeah, as the industry matures and scales up, right?

David Gonzalez: Sure. Yeah. That makes sense.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Are there any particular trends in the industry that you really like, or dislike?

David Gonzalez: Loaded question.

Richard Cox: No, not at all.

David Gonzalez: There are and there are not. I see everything in life being cyclic, turning in cycles. So I've said this for a few years now, that I see more sessionable styles coming back. That's why I'm glad that Dave and I agreed with how we were going to handle our portfolio here, being more sessionable beers.

David Gonzalez: And talking with brewers all around the country, and vendors that go all around the country, saying, "Yeah, brewers are getting a little tired of brewing these off the wall, overly hops beer IPAs, and fruited, and all that kind of stuff. From a business perspective, it costs a lot of money to make those beers. The amount of hops, the hops that are being used that are so sought after, are costing 20, $30 a pound, if you could get them. And then you're adding boatloads of them. And then, "Oh, let's make sour IPAs. Let's make fruited IPAs and milkshake IPAs." That's a trend that I, personally, don't care for.

David Gonzalez: I see the appeal of it. I see the appeal of the Rotation Nation type, Turn & Burn type beers. Because somewhat, sometimes Americans have a short attention span, and they know they want the new thing. Ever since I've been in Charlotte, ever since 1999, I said it earlier, that yeah, put out your new beer, 01:00:00and two weeks later, people like, "When's the next new beer?" So I see that, but from a business perspective, it can be a little difficult to do. From a planning and trajectory points, that can be tough to plan how you're going to ... All right. Well, are we just going to continue to do that? Or are we going to have mainstay beers? So those are trends that I don't really care for.

David Gonzalez: The malternatives, we'll see where that goes. I see that as a niche that, this certain one that's basically alcohol carbonated water. Who knows where that's going to go? Maybe two, three years, I think maybe that novelty will where off. Maybe I'll be wrong. You're seeing [inaudible 01:00:50] pop up now, so who knows? Will they always be there? Yes. Will there always be Hazy IPAs out there? Yes. We brew one here. I never thought I'd want to make 01:01:00one, but once again, it's a business.

David Gonzalez: I remembered sitting in a conference about a year and a half ago, and they asked this, well, famous brewer who is known for not liking, asked him his thoughts. He goes, "At the end of the day, it's a business, so if they sell, they sell." They do. Those are trends that I like and I don't like.

Richard Cox: Yeah, sure. And speaking of trends, if you had a crystal ball, where would you see the beer industry going in the next three to five years?

David Gonzalez: I see it getting more localized. I mean, yeah, it has gotten more localized, more hyper local, but I see that becoming more and more. I think regional breweries, as we've seen over the past year, or two, have had a real tough time because they grew, grew, grew. "Let's build the new Jade production facility," and "Oh, no. Now, we have all this capacity space. What do we do?"

David Gonzalez: When you move out of your own local markets, you're not local 01:02:00anymore. You're not the local guys. Let's say we move to Northern Virginia, or something, our product. We're not local. We'll be new for a couple of months, and then numbers will drop off. We have no plans of doing that any time soon, but that is used as an example. But I think it's ... The people that have done that have to think, "Okay, what do we do now? We're still contracting." Because unless they're still filling their tanks and selling all their beer outside, I see it being more local.

David Gonzalez: I never thought the taproom model was really going to take off. I thought we were going to go more towards brew pub mode, or restaurant brewery. I'm seeing more of the hybrid model, where it's a taproom that maybe has a small kitchen on-site, or something like that. I see that kind of going, but I kind of see it just staying local and small, maybe satellite locations. We're seeing that. Hi-Wire have built a couple of satellite locations, Catawba, and a few 01:03:00other places. So I see that as being a model, too.

Richard Cox: Great. Yeah, the small kitchen thing is sort of interesting because I've noted that, as well. It's almost a return to the brew pub in limited way. Kind of interesting.

David Gonzalez: It is. At first, I shook my head, a little bit. I remember when I was still at Rivermen, we had a vendor come in, a good friend mine, who works for a malt company who is all over the East Coast. He was saying, "I see brew pubs coming back and back, more and more restaurant breweries." But I think that's even become more of a hybrid model, especially after this pandemic. So many restaurants going.

David Gonzalez: I remember when the pandemic first started, I read a report. I forget what magazine it was from. They expected 100,000 restaurants never to reopen again, in the United States. So now, people that have put that into their model, it's a completely different model. You have your back at the house brewing, but you also have your front and back of the house restaurant staff. 01:04:00And it's a completely different atmosphere and different. Just different.

Richard Cox: Different business, right? I mean-

David Gonzalez: Different business. I remember, since the brewery in the Charlotte region has gotten fairly big, and I remember talking to the owner once. He was like ... They were a small taproom model. They've moved locations. They sold they're original location to another Charlotte brewery. He goes, "And we'll never own a restaurant." This was when they were at their first location. "I never want to be involved with the restaurant side of it." Now, they have a full restaurant at their new location. It's doing well. It brings a lot of people, a lot of people in there. Well, you adapt.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do you see anything unique about Southern beer, or North Carolina beer specifically?

David Gonzalez: I see it being a little bit of a hybrid of everything. I've noticed that down here, we're a few years behind different areas. I remember 01:05:00when I moved to North Carolina from Maine. I was like, "Wow. North Carolina's probably five to 10 years behind Maine." I remember going up and living in Maine and going to the supermarket, and there'd be like six cabinets ... not cabinets, like coolers in a grocery store. And four of them would be all of the local breweries from Maine, and then two of them would be all the big imports, big breweries, some out-of-states. And then come down here, again, this was the late '90s, it was the complete opposite.

David Gonzalez: It's just, people are using Southern ingredients, grits. And it's also an area that is conducive to agriculture. There's hop farms. There's malts here, and they're growing great down here. And the breweries are incorporating that. So I see that, and I see also doing spins of other styles, 01:06:00Southeastern IPAs. I've heard of [inaudible 01:06:05] and stuff like that, from some breweries.

Richard Cox: Really?

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: I hadn't heard of that yet.

David Gonzalez: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Interesting.

David Gonzalez: Not necessarily a style, but using Southern ingredients, whether it's, like I said, grits, or something like that. Yeah.

Richard Cox: That's fascinating. So focusing in a little bit more on Charlotte there, thinking of North Carolina, do you see the different regions? However that you want to define that, I suppose. Is the beer scene differing? So Charlotte to, I guess, the Triad, at Asheville, Triangle. Do you see the beer culture is different, or pretty well the same across the state?

David Gonzalez: I think it's similar because I think each of the areas has kind of grown. Asheville obviously grew a little bit before certain other areas. Raleigh moved up. Then Charlotte moved up, Triad. But I think, in general, the state, itself, is mostly the same, obviously just different demographics. If you 01:07:00go to the coastal area, they might have some different styles of beer because of what sells there.

David Gonzalez: But I think, for the most part, the state is pretty much the same with each other. Which is kind of really cool, actually, from being such a diverse state, where you could be in the mountains, or rural areas, and the coast, or a metropolitan area.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Great. Do you currently have favorite beer from a North Carolina brewery, other than Lost Worlds? Feel free to name a couple, and maybe the recent one.

David Gonzalez: I tend to like styles of beer. I see that as a political question. Because I'll give you a little background. When we were interviewing for the executive director's position for the guild, that was my question. I would ask people what their favorite beer was because I wanted to see how they would answer. I would want to see if they were looking at the ...

David Gonzalez: We had one [inaudible 01:07:57]. It was like, "Ooh, I really love Duck Rabbits Amber," because Paul was on the board, "but I really like 01:08:00Highland Gaelic," because Highland was on the board, and basically saying that. So are you buttering up to someone? Are you saying a style of beer? So I could see that, and I'd do that on purpose to see how they would interact. So that's a little bit of a loaded question.

David Gonzalez: I tend to like styles of beer more. I'm more of a malt. I love porters. I love Schwarzbiers, brown ale, stout. I go through phases, and up and down with IPAs and hops. There's beer that's not made in this state anymore that I absolutely love, but Old Hickory Brewery. It was called Bardstown Brand. It was a barrel-aged Barleywine and, ah, that was phenomenal. People's Porter from Foothills I think is a really good example of porter.

David Gonzalez: My youngest son is named after that beer. I was working for Foothills at the time. My wife brought up the idea and I was not going to say 01:09:00no. She says it's more of beer because that's one of our two favorite style. That's one of our favorite styles between us. And I was working for Foothills, at the time. There are a lot of great beers, a lot of really great, great beers out there. I think most breweries make at least one beer that's like, "Wow, this is a really good beer."

Richard Cox: Great. What would you say is Lost Worlds' flagship, or signature beer, at this stage? You mentioned the Basecamp group [crosstalk 01:09:32].

David Gonzalez: The Basecamp are our core beers. We have our Euchre Golden Ale. We have our Vista, which is a West Coast IPA. I knew we had to do an IPA, and I wanted to do more of a West Coast style. We have our Equator, which is a Island IPA. It's a juicy session IPA. So I didn't want to just throw out a Hazy IPA. It's hazy, but I wanted to make that a little different. We have our Trek Porter, which is a porter, our Trier, which is our Berliner Weisse, our Emmer, 01:10:00which is American wheat. Right now, we have our Cherry Emmer, which is the cherry version of it.

David Gonzalez: Probably our two beers that are selling the most consistently out of our Basecamp Beers, are our Euchre and our Vista. Euchre because of our market. It's light beer town. Our Vista because it's an IPA. I see people that look in the craft, and they, "Craft, IPA. It's got to be an IPA." So I think people that kind of go into it, try that first. They either want a light beer that lean towards our Euchre, or our Vista.

David Gonzalez: Recently, we just released our Oktoberfest and our Pumpkin, our Squanto's Spiced Pumpkin Ale. They're selling like crazy, absolute crazy. But I think that has to with the season we're in now. I remember Dave looked at me and goes, "I kind of wonder how a pumpkin beer's going to sell." Because pumpkins were popular, and then they kind of dove off. And we're going to be brewing a 01:11:00second batch later this week. It's just because it's selling so well.

David Gonzalez: But to get back to the core flagship, it's probably in like the Euchre, the Vista, right now. And we'll see how that goes. We don't want to have a specific core beer, like one that we're known for. I don't want to say we want to be great at everything because I'm not that kind of person. We want to be good at everything.

Richard Cox: Be solid, and-

David Gonzalez: Yes. Ah, yeah, solid, clean beers that are good examples of them.

Richard Cox: Yeah. And you mentioned briefly, when people think craft, they think IPA. When people come into the taproom and they may be new to craft beer, is there any way that you all specifically go about maybe, for lack of a better phrase, educating them about what is craft beer and introducing them to beer, new beers?

David Gonzalez: Yeah. We have a great front-of-house staff, or our bartender 01:12:00staff. A lot of our has worked for other breweries. Well, our taproom manager worked for another brew pub ... not a brew pub, another brewery that has a few locations. Our assistant taproom manager worked for a couple of different breweries. Most of our staff has, so they have that background besides training.

David Gonzalez: Training is really big for us. So they sit down with me, and we go over the beers. We go over what ... If a guest comes in and says, "I know I've only drank a such-and-such beer." "Oh, well, why don't you try this?" We give tastes, a little one-ounce, or a half-ounce tastes of something, we call them splashes, if someone wants to try something before they get a pint of it. We offer flights with that. It's a great, great way for someone to get into craft beer, or really decide what they like.

David Gonzalez: From an educational standpoint, they can try a variety and be like, "Oh, I really like this one. I didn't like this one. I'm glad I didn't buy a pint [inaudible 01:12:57]. This is what I want next." From a business perspective, it's good because you're getting your initial sell of a flight, but 01:13:00you've also wet someone's whistle to it, where then they're more than likely going to buy a second beer after that. So you're generating more revenue.

David Gonzalez: We did the same thing with Berliner Weisse. We have our core Berliner Weisse, our Basecamp Trier, and then we got flavorings. So we offer different flavored syrups that we can pour into it. Then you can get four different varieties of Berliner Weisse, five different ones.

David Gonzalez: So we've done something like that, or we won those medals. Marketing decided they wanted to do a medal flight, or four medal winners, so you get four in a flight, which is kind of cool, too. I mean, so that's incorporating marketing and stuff into it, but I think that's the way to try to educate people. Like I said, we're coming up with a Lost Worlds Television, which is just one of our TVs loops a bunch of stuff. There's stuff about the beers. There's pictures and video of the brewing process. There'll be pictures of me, or my assistant, talking about beers and stuff like that.

David Gonzalez: Well, and as COVID gets lifted more and more restrictions, we'll start doing more and more events, more and more tastings and stuff like that, beer dinners. We have a amazing restaurant right next to us that sort of partners with us, where they made a menu just for our place. So if you're at our place, you get the menu. You like at it. You're like, "Oh, let me call." You call and pay for it over the phone. They deliver it. So as they get bigger, as hopefully as restrictions comes loosen up, it's more sooner than later. We'll be able to do more events like that.

Richard Cox: Yeah, that sounds great. Do you have a favorite beer from Lost Worlds, right now? Not a loaded question.

David Gonzalez: I love our porter. I've had other brewers come in and say, I had one professional brewer say, "This is special." And then, like I said, I rarely pat myself on the back, but when I hear other brewers, or beer judges, or people in the industry say something about me, I'm like, "Okay. That's cool. I like that."

David Gonzalez: I had one brewer tell me our Euchre, sends me a text, goes, "Dude, I just tried your Euchre. I could drink 100 of those." I saved that text for a while, and then got rid of it because my text box was loaded up. I like our porter a lot. Like I said, I like maltier beers. I love the Black Lager we just put on. Like I said, I tend to lean towards maltier beers. I try a lot of beers that we do and all that. And then I rarely sit down and drink a pint. I'll get like half pours, and I'll just drink a couple of those.

Richard Cox: Awesome. Well, that's all the actual questions I have for you. Is there anything you'd like to add?

David Gonzalez: I don't know. I just, I think North Carolina ... I am a Yankee. I know I'm a damn Yankee because I stayed here 20-something years later. But I do, I think North Carolina is special for beer. I think we put our own little 01:16:00spin on it. There's so many great beers, so many great breweries, so many great brewers and brewsters in this state. You look at the award ceremony. It's like GABF every year. Last year, it was six, or seven, or eight medals were medaled to North Carolina. I think five, or six in Charlotte, alone, two by one brewery. It shows the validity of the beer in the South, specifically our state.

David Gonzalez: I think that the collaborative efforts with everyone, I think our Brewers Guild is phenomenal, with the beer smarts they have, the conference they have every year. [inaudible 01:16:36] it will be virtual. I remember talking to one vendor on the trade floor of it, and he goes ... This was about two years ago. He goes, "This is what the national convention was, 10 years ago." And we're there in couple of years later, or whatever. It's just how it's growing, that the sense of how everyone wants to help each other and all that. I just, I think it's a special place to be, and the beer is good.

Richard Cox: Awesome.

David Gonzalez: So about it.

Richard Cox: Thanks so much, man. I appreciate your time.

David Gonzalez: Awesome. Thank you.