Oral history interview with Dennis Thies, 2021

Richard Cox: So to start, could you please say and spell your name?

Dennis Thies: Dennis Thies, T-H-I-E-S.

Richard Cox: Today is Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021. I'm Richard Cox talking today with Dennis Thies, owner of Green Man Brewery in Asheville as a part of the Well Crafted NC project. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Dennis Thies: Well, thanks for having me, Richard, that's Hazel over there. I'm an old beer guy. I've been in the business on and off part-time since I was a kid in South Florida. My family owned a craft beer distribution company called Thies Distributing. We were a MillerCoors beer distributor since 1951. In the 00:01:002000s we started getting heavily into craft beer starting with Sam Adams and brands like Dogfish Head and started really seeing craft when it came to Florida, which was late, early in the 2000s. Our family decided to sell the business in 2008, and that was what prompted me to move to Asheville.

Richard Cox: Awesome. My next question's usually, how did you become interested in the brewing industry, but it sounds like it's always been a part of your life.

Dennis Thies: Interestingly, and there's the fire truck. Cue the fire truck.

Richard Cox: Always happens.

Dennis Thies: You want me looking at the camera, right?

Richard Cox: You can look at me.

Dennis Thies: Look at you.

Richard Cox: Yeah, look at me.

Dennis Thies: Okay. Because it'll look... yeah.

Richard Cox: It's fine. We're good.

Dennis Thies: All right. Hopefully everybody's okay. We're at downtown here, the fire station's right over there. My interest in the craft brewing industry started in the early 2000s like I mentioned, as a beer distributor. I feel like 00:02:00I was very passionate as a consumer about craft beer and learning about it and really moving away from macro, Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light as an alternative and more flavorful and more exciting than the macro brands. I was an early adopter of the craft brewing industry and breweries in the early 2000s. When our family business was sold, I thought it would be great to stay in the business through craft beer and actually purchase a brewery or start my own brewery. To start my own brewery I thought, well, what the hell do I know about brewing beer?

Dennis Thies: I know a lot about the beer industry, but not much about brewing, that's a whole other animal. This opportunity here presented itself in 2009 and 00:03:00I was introduced to the then owner founder of Green Man, Joe Eckert. We had lunch at his restaurant and I said, "Hey Joe, would you ever consider selling your brewery?" He's a Philly guy, I wasn't sure if he was going to be insulted. Nine months later or so I was able to get it done with buying it from Joe. I like to say I'm not the founder, but I found it which-

Richard Cox: It was 2010 when you actually closed the deal-

Dennis Thies: It was 2010. Correct. It was this just great little place in downtown Asheville that just had a vibe and great beer. And I just thought, being an old beer guy and a creative person, I thought, this Green Man guy, this 00:04:00could be some kind of a brand. I thought, I wasn't sure and I didn't know and I wasn't really able to get anybody on board with thinking that it was a good idea, but I think it was.

Richard Cox: Yeah, absolutely. If we can step back a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about the history of Green Man?

Dennis Thies: Well, sure. How much time do we have? So 25 years next year. I don't know much before my time, because in typical Green Man lore, it's very mythical and mysterious.

Richard Cox: Great stories are always welcome too.

Dennis Thies: It's a very mysterious brewery because it's been around so long and it's the Green Man who's mysterious by nature. But I can throw some props to some folks that deserve it. Joe and Joan started it in their brew pub, Joe and Joan Eckert in '97. It started under the stairs very humbly by a couple of other 00:05:00fellas named Andy Dahm and Jonas Rembert who are long gone. Uniquely, it was called Green Man Brewery but it was in Jack of the Wood pub. That is a very unique situation that it wasn't called Jack of the Wood Brewery which would...

Richard Cox: But it was the beer for Jack of the Wood.

Dennis Thies: Correct. That's a great point. Some three or four years later, five years, I mean I don't know, they moved the brewery to here, Dirty Jack's is what it's affectionately called here by the locals, a fellow by the name of Carl Melissas was the then brewer who installed our brew house and notoriously had a falling out with the owner who they didn't get along. Carl in 2000 whatever, 10, 00:06:00went on to The Wedge and a fellow by the name of John Stuart came in in 2007 I think it was John Stuart's first year. John deserves a lot of credit. He's a great brewer. He was here 10 years. John created those iconic brands, IPA, ESB, and Porter. That's John, that's not me. He's moved on since to Nantahala. My head brewer here now is Kyle McKenzie. He's been with me a long time with Sean Coleman who's been with me almost 10 years. Hazel. He's ready for that.

Dennis Thies: Those are the guys that really built this thing that supported my vision of growing Green Man, having a brand that could be a regional player, which I think we are. We're smaller than people think we're very non-corporate. We're 100% family owned and operated. My wife, Wendy, and I own the brewery 00:07:00100%. There's no outside investors, bankers, shadowmen, none of that. We make a decision and we go, we don't have to have a board meeting and no outside investment. We've been able to, on top of all that, buy the property that we're on so we can control our destiny.

Richard Cox: Which is great and rare.

Dennis Thies: Yeah, we're lucky. We hit it before this old South Slope was really the thing that it is now, because the property would have been untouchable. We got lucky. Very, very lucky. I'm Irish so-

Richard Cox: Luck of the Irish.

Dennis Thies: Cue it up to that I guess.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Once you bought the brewery in 2010, were there any changes you started instigating right away?

Dennis Thies: Well, the place was falling apart. It would have honestly been easier to build a new brewery than to do what we did, which was replace all the 00:08:00tanks, replace all the piping, replace the chiller. From an infrastructure standpoint, not very exciting, but we had to. My first day on the job I sold my car to buy a boiler, and that's a fact. Because I didn't have any money because I had just bought the brewery. But John said, this is a famous story. He says, I'm having a beer, newly minted brewery owner, "Dennis, I didn't want to tell you this, we need a boiler." I'm like, "Okay, what's a boiler. What's that new? How much?"

Richard Cox: How much.

Dennis Thies: "Oh shit, I'll have you the money by Friday." Sold my Yukon to buy a boiler, a Columbia Boiler, it's still sitting over there. Anyway, infrastructurally it needed a lot of attention and loving and then we had to start building things. We didn't have a website. We didn't have any of that stuff. We didn't have a Facebook page. I think we started a Facebook page. That 00:09:00sounded like a great idea. We set off to just build this thing from the ground up the way that I wanted to do it, the way that I saw the vision for it. Made a ton of mistakes along the way, a million. But really the answer to that question was distribution. That was the key. As an old distributor guy I'm thinking, let's put it over there and over here.

Dennis Thies: That was putting it on tap at places that would support us around town, which at first they were hesitant because we were known as that Jack of the Wood beer, so that was a hurdle. Then in glass growlers in stores, it was the big jugs so old school. We didn't package until 2013 we got into bottles. There was three years there where we were just doing it like that. We set the brewery on a different path. I like to say that Green Man was born in 1997 but 00:10:00he was reborn in 2010. It was a whole different way of approaching our business. Here's a biggie. At the time. There was only four local competitors, now there's 44, the OG guys. Highland of course, French Broad which is right over there, Asheville Brewery, and Pisgah, Black Mountain. That was all that there was.

Dennis Thies: We would go into an account, go into the beer garden and say, "Hey man, we'd love to put Green Man on tap," and they would like, "Really? We'd love to, can I get two kegs?" The demand was... it was like demand was here and supply was here. All you had to do was show up with the keg and they put you on, they support all five of us easily.

Richard Cox: That's awesome.

Dennis Thies: But now it's like, "Well, email me on Monday and I'll let you know next month." Distributors deal with all that stuff now. We were 00:11:00self-distributing then, distributors deal with that now.

Richard Cox: Obviously there was a lot of growth during this period.

Dennis Thies: Oh yeah.

Richard Cox: How would you say Green Man has grown since 2010, which is a story in of it itself as well?

Dennis Thies: Feel like we won some Super Bowls, 2012, 2013. I feel like we won back to back championships there. Nothing against the other guys, they were winning too. But then a lot changed in 2013. Around that time was when this little Wicked Weed thing started. New Belgium came to town. Sierra Nevada first then New Belgium, and somewhere in the middle or after was Oskar Blues and rumored Deschutes was coming. Did I say that right?

Richard Cox: That's perfect.

Dennis Thies: The competition was moving in and that's cool. We had our spot 00:12:00here. All the while the tasting rooms were... one tasting room at the time, now we have three. Tasting room just kept doing this, crazy growth. All of 2010 to now the tasting room kept doing this, but distribution did this and then started to do this. You know what I mean?

Richard Cox: Right.

Dennis Thies: As the big boys moved in, now Wicked Weed's a big boy for sure. Obviously what happened with them, but there's no denying that it's such a great brand. I mean, I've enjoyed being their neighbor on two sides. They're great folks over there. We're not going to talk about Wicked Weed here the whole the time, but you get the picture.

Richard Cox: Yes.

Dennis Thies: Couple that with these other guys coming into town and you're talking about a competitive landscape. That is pretty, pretty fierce. North Carolina outside brands historically don't do very well here. I mean it's like 00:13:00Mount Olympus for beer here in Asheville.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Just for the sake of the interview I'll point out, when we're talking around Wicked Weed we're talking about when AB InBev bought them, back then.

Dennis Thies: We're talking about Wicked Weed in general because when they opened they were a force before AB and they deserve all the credit in the world. They've done a hell of a job, it's a great brand. But it changed a lot. I would point out on the other side, see it's really two things. You have distribution where we're fighting it out in the grocery store well over here and then you have tap rooms. I would argue that they have only helped our tap room because we don't have a restaurant. We've spent years saying, "Go to Wicked Weed get a cheeseburger, come back and see us." Or they're coming down the hill and they had a cheeseburger and they're coming to see us. It's not hurting anything, it's only helping. It's created this incredible consumer experience.

Dennis Thies: Tourism in Asheville is happening with Asheville and the 00:14:00beercations and people coming here and all the hotels have opened. It's insane. That part of our business for all of us is more than we can handle on the weekends. It's a Saturday phenomenon. During the week we're fine, but Saturdays it starts to tilt. This town starts tilting. I've said before that there are just not enough tap handles and bar stools to fill the demand. It's incredible. You should walk around here on a Saturday, you wouldn't believe it.

Richard Cox: Sure. Yeah.

Dennis Thies: It's only helped us. Sierra Nevada, I mean, their facility is incredible. We're going to throw props to anybody. Sierra Nevada is like the coup de grace of breweries. I mean it's phenomenal and New Belgium's no small shake. Then Highland built their outside and tap room in The Meadows and it's just, it's a lot going on here when you talk about breweries. But we got our 00:15:00nice little niche here and I'm very pleased with what we have and I really can't complain.

Richard Cox: Great. What would you as owner? What is your role here and how would you describe your average week?

Dennis Thies: Oh man, I couldn't.

Richard Cox: Which is, yeah, it's a tricky question anyway.

Dennis Thies: It's an impossible question to answer. I mean, my wife would like to know the answer to this question. My wife, Wendy, handles all the business stuff, and that's pretty important. About as close as I get to handling the actual business side of our business is running the bank back to the bank. That's about as close as I get to the money side of the business, accounting and all that goes with it. It's tremendous. I don't do any of that, but it's pretty broad, and I'm not a brewer, and I didn't found the place. So what really do I 00:16:00do? I mean, that's a good question.

Richard Cox: You talk to people about the brewery.

Dennis Thies: I don't know. Maybe the guys that work here could answer that one for me. I got a root beer.

Richard Cox: You do. It's your very own special root beer.

Dennis Thies: I'm very happy about our all natural root here. It was an idea that I thought was a good one and we're selling a lot of root beer. It's been a lot of fun.

Richard Cox: You diversified, right?

Dennis Thies: A lot of kids come here and they're bored.

Richard Cox: When you first bought Green Man in 2010 what was Asheville like?

Dennis Thies: Oh, it was very different. It was completely different. Just a vibe that you can't describe. The people, the locals are incredible. They've supported Green Man since the beginning. But there was no tourism, there was 00:17:00none of this. This beer thing hadn't happened yet. It was very small, very artistic. It still is, but it's gotten to be this major thing that's been on the major networks. Now, Asheville got discovered a few years later, as did the breweries which got everyone's attention, which brought a lot more breweries and here we are today. It was just in a word, I think, funky. It was funky and it was great. It still is great. It was different. All of the hotels created more tourism which only benefited us. But I think the locals definitely wish it were more like 2010 than it is now. I mean, I've been here 14 years. I liked it 00:18:00better then.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Fair enough, yeah. It's, yeah, a lot of change.

Dennis Thies: For sure.

Richard Cox: If you were to describe Green Man to people who were, for some reason, unaware of the brewery, how would you describe it?

Dennis Thies: I would say, "Well, what have you been doing? Where have you been? We've been around 24 years." If you don't know anything about Green Man, I think that it's visually compelling, which is really important in these days. I think if you look at that face you're just like, like I did in 2009, "Wow, that's cool man. What is that?" And it gets your interest. That's the sign of any great brand. You got to look at it, if you don't know what it is, and be intrigued by it. Then what's really important is the beer. I think our beer's great. I think that the guys before Kyle have done a great job, Kyle McKenzie is our lead brewer along with Sean Coleman. Again, mention those guys. Chad and Preston are 00:19:00putting out really great beer consistently. We don't cut corners. We don't put out beer before it's ready. We use nothing but the best ingredients and I think it shows.

Richard Cox: Yeah. You've already touched on this, but what would you say is the main mission or theme of Green Man?

Dennis Thies: That's a good one. Well, any great brewery has to have a brand identity. You have to have a brand and it's not like Buxton Brewery, which is the street we're on. It's not, yeah I don't want to poke on anybody. But any great brand starts with a name and a vision like I just said earlier. That Green Man is a personification of a brand. He's a man, he's a dude, he's a deity, he's 00:20:00a demon, he's a man of the woods, protector of the animals, whatever you want it to be. Our brand is very deep in that. Not too many brands that I know of are a personification, if that makes any sense.

Richard Cox: No, it makes perfect sense. Yeah.

Dennis Thies: He's a dude, and we have a lot of fun with that dude. I like to say that that's the Green Man, interpret him how you want, whatever makes you feel good. People have tattoos of him, whatever your interpretation of him. It's religious almost, or political, whatever your view is is great. We don't get into religion, politics, sexual orientation, none of that here at Green Man. But interpret Green Man how you will. I like to say we interpret the Green Man through our guy and our beer. That's how we see the Green Man as our brand. It's 00:21:00so fun to sit downstairs and watch people walk in for the first time and they're just like, "oh," and they take pictures. I love that. That's the best.

Richard Cox: Yeah. No, that's great. This will be a fun one. Can you describe for us your location and space or spaces?

Dennis Thies: Sure. Well, uniquely, we have two completely different tap room experiences right next door to each other. We're sitting in the Green Mansion. Green Mansion, have no idea how that name came about to be honest. It's a incredible place that we built from the ground up that's beautiful and welcoming. Structurally, and architecturally, and from a design standpoint, incredible. My wife, Wendy, deserves a lot of credit here. We've been able to 00:22:00build this from the ground up, which is its own unique experience and spacious. Now with COVID, outdoorsy and we have lots of space. But going back to the original Dirty Jack's, that is just a, you can't replicate that. You could try, but you can't. I don't even know how to describe Dirty Jack's. One bathroom, six bar stools in a garage that is iconic.

Dennis Thies: My favorite Dirty Jack's story was at a Journey concert with my sons in the restroom and I had a Green Man shirt on at the urinal. A dude walks in and goes, "Dirty Jack's." My son's looking like, "Dad." I was like, "Yes," so you just... it's like, I'm a big metalhead. If you've ever heard of X band, you just know, Dirty Jack's, okay. Yeah. Two different things. If you've been coming 00:23:00to Asheville, you've probably been to Dirty Jack's. This is the new place. This is the touristy can get knocked a bit like, "Liked the old place better." Which is fine. I do too.

Richard Cox: But I mean, you put this together. It's really multiple buildings over time you've pulled together.

Dennis Thies: It's Dirty Jack's, brewing and fermentation, Green Mansion, parking lot.

Richard Cox: Yeah. How large is the space? Square footage-

Dennis Thies: Oh, that's a great question. This is about 22,000 square feet total, I think. Might be 20, 20 or 22. It would have been bigger but the good old city of Asheville had some requirements that... brewing fermentation can't be more than 3,500 square feet, maybe 4,000 square feet. That's where our lab is as well and brewer's office. Then Dirty Jack's is smaller than that. That might 00:24:00be 3000 square feet.

Richard Cox: Yeah. How big's the brew house?

Dennis Thies: That building is probably about 3,500 square feet. The brew house configuration is a 30 barrel with I think, I want to say 1260 barrel tanks. Again, I'm not a brewer. Brewers out there making fun of me right now. It's deserved.

Richard Cox: We can talk about 2020 for a minute. 2020 was a year of challenges for the brewing industry due to COVID-19. How did you all approach these challenges? Do you see any of the decisions you made during this period affecting your business model in the future?

Dennis Thies: Just sticking with it. But more importantly, having Matt, Kyle, Dale, Preston, and those guys and Sean, I hope I'm not leaving anybody out. 00:25:00Having those guys stick it out with me because without them I'm done. I probably would be washed up because we were able to brew and package beer throughout the whole thing. Yeah, that's big. Thanks to those guys. I mean, my only contribution there was bringing them cheeseburgers a couple times and jumping on the line because I'm useless. They did it and they just kept the train going. That train was in grocery stores, so we were very lucky there because this was shut down. Everybody was shut down. Because we were able to brew and package and those guys were doing it, we sustained ourselves, we met payroll. When we get our check from our local distributor, Budweiser of Asheville, thank you, Chad. We got that check every week. I was like, "Made it through another week."

Dennis Thies: Then it started to come back. I think making the decision, to answer your question, to stick with it, keep brewing, keep packaging. I mean a lot of shit fell through the cracks, but we just kept doing Wayfarer 15 packs and pounding our horses. Draft beer was gone, it was packaging. It was cans and bottles. That we had that grocery store business to sustain us, we were extremely fortunate. To have those guys that I named, I hope I didn't miss anybody, to brew beer, put it in packages, and get it out the door. I forgot Damien who gets it on the trucks. They stuck with it, got it done, and it sustained us ans we were doing great. Then the tap rooms came back and we're looking to get... it's not going to happen this year, but I think we're going to have close to our best year this year I'm hoping.

Richard Cox: Great. No, that's awesome. What role do you feel breweries such as Green Man have played in the changes in Asheville since?

Dennis Thies: I think tremendous. Green Man is so rooted in Asheville, it's an 00:27:00Asheville brand. We did a little contract brewing in Florida. I think just packaging for like six months or a year. I don't remember what the timeline was, maybe it was over a year actually. Because we were building our infrastructure, installing packaging equipment here and we had to offsource just our flagship beer in packages in Florida. We're brewing everything else, kegs, specialty beer, all this stuff's still here. We caught so much grief man. It was, "Oh Green Man's brewing all their beer in Florida now." We caught a lot of shit for that. It's cool. I mean, I get it, but it was just so that we stopped doing that at some point and bring it all in-house so we could get our infrastructure from here to here because this is a very ambitious thing we did here and we couldn't keep brewing and doing everything.

Dennis Thies: We couldn't keep packaging to the level we were at and build this at the same time, so we contracted it just for maybe two years, whatever it was. 00:28:00I forget. But it showed me how important Green Man is to Asheville. They were feeling about that. I think that Green Man is very important to Asheville. I think as the second oldest brewery in town, it's got a real place. When people visit they've had a great experience here and they think fondly of Asheville, and the food scene, and the breweries, everything that comes with it.

Richard Cox: Great. Are there some examples of community engagement work or community fundraising work you all have done?

Dennis Thies: Oh sure. We've done a bad job of talking about that. But I don't think there's a month that goes by that we haven't done something charitable. 00:29:00Namely, I told you about the dog adoption thing we did, my two pups came from that. We're very involved in a local charity for kids that we do an annual fundraising event with. But there are many that we do. I would say that we do a lot and we don't really talk about it a lot, and maybe we should. Asheville, just like any city, has the best of and there's the most charitable brewery or something in there. We never get in there because we don't really talk about it enough. We are absolutely, it's important to us, Wendy and I, to contribute to our local community and we do a lot of that.

Richard Cox: Great. Yeah. Do you have any plans for Green Man's growth in the 00:30:00future that you can talk about?

Dennis Thies: This is no shocker, but I think that that growth will come from more tap room business, whether that's here or somewhere else in North Carolina preferably. I think that's how you're going to grow. Because growing through distribution for a brewery our size, we don't have the power of distribution authority. In other words, what I mean by that is the big distributors, I can't say, "Hey man, I need everyone to get my root beer." "Yeah. Okay, Dennis, we'll let you know." In the pecking we're down here. If I was acquired by Heineken 00:31:00then all my Heineken distributors, my priority goes from here to here, "Let's sell some Green Man boys." But they're just, and I'm not knocking big distributors, I used to be one.

Dennis Thies: Now, I will say that we have four independent craft beer distributors. That is more of an equal playing field in terms of them listening to our, "Hey man, we need you to bring root area in and get it." They'll do it. "Oh yeah, no problem." They listen to us more. I guess that's how you could say it, they listen to us more the smaller distributor.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Makes good sense.

Dennis Thies: But it's hard to grow. If you're going to rely on distribution to grow your business it's going to cost you a fortune. I'm going to have to hire 10 sales guys and really go get it, and then is that really? I'm still going up against those big boys that control the distributor mindset. I'm not knocking distributors. I don't blame them. I mean they got bigger fish to fry than little 00:32:00old Green Man. They're selling Chevys and we're a Porsche. We sell one Porsche for 100 Chevys more like 10,000 Chevys probably. It's tap rooms for sure.

Richard Cox: Yeah. So Green Man is the second oldest brewery in town. First tasting room, possibly the first sour program?

Dennis Thies: That's right. We think the first brewery around for a long ways to tackle wild fermentation, barrel-aged sours, eventually led to Berliner Weisses, that wasn't being done in 2010 or '11. We made a beer called Funk #49 that we think was the first barrel-aged sour beer for hundreds and hundreds of miles, which is kind of cool. In typical Green Man fashion, we didn't talk about it a 00:33:00whole lot, we just put it out there. We didn't really realize what we were doing at the time. Since then it's certainly changed a lot.

Richard Cox: In 2022 you'll be celebrating 25 years. Do you have any particular reflections when you look back on that time? A good bit of which was actually your time.

Dennis Thies: I think that's going to be like half on behalf of my time, something like that. What a wild, crazy, incredible ride it's been. I'm very grateful for where we are as a brewery and for the folks that support our brand, buy our beer, and love Green Man. I'm very grateful for that. My vision has come to fruition in terms of what I thought it could be. It's smaller than my initial 00:34:00desire or vision, but as I've grown older, I'm older than I was when I bought the brewery, I'm really good with it with where we are. I'm very glad that we don't have 20 salesmen in eight states. I'm very thankful that we don't have a bunch of debt from growing on our infrastructure in the middle of that period, which was really challenging and really hard. I'm grateful for my dad who helped us with some real estate stuff during the way, and my wife, Wendy, who came in two or three years into it and just took over the business side because that's important.

Richard Cox: Yeah. It's a business.

Dennis Thies: She's incredible and we couldn't do it without her here. But I think it's a long-term brand for North Carolina. I think we're going to be here 50 years from now. We have a generational approach. We have four kids who may or may not want to be involved. Just the fact that it's a beloved North Carolina brand, I'm very grateful for. We have some fun stuff that we're going to look forward to next year when we have our celebration. It'll likely be on St. Patrick's Day because we've just adopted that day as our birthday because we don't really know when it was or is. The Green Man on St Patrick's Day just works for us.

Richard Cox: Yeah. It was made for one another.

Dennis Thies: We've had some throwdowns over the years, we're talking about closing the street, live music. Got some tricks up our sleeve like possibly that 00:36:00iconic barrel-aged sour that you guys might remember that had a Willy Wonka theme might make a comeback.

Richard Cox: Yup, I remember.

Dennis Thies: You may see a incredible top shelf whiskey from us made by our friends at the Chemist, right up the street. You might see that. We've got some other things that we want to release and have fun with and who knows-

Richard Cox: Sounds like fun. Sounds like appropriate for the celebration too.

Dennis Thies: It'll be fun. That's really what Green Man is, is fun and great beer. In a nutshell, I'm grateful for this. This is our mission I guess, if I didn't answer it earlier. It brings me great joy, but at the end of the day it's not about me it's about the Green Man. He makes you happy. We want to make you happy. We want you to come here and have pint and be happy and have a great time. What could be better than that.

Richard Cox: Yeah, exactly. To broaden, let me talk about the craft beer industry a little bit. What would you say it's like to work in the craft brewing industry today?

Dennis Thies: I'll tell you. Having been in the business full-time and part-time since I was 12 and I'm 29 now.

Richard Cox: Right.

Dennis Thies: No.

Richard Cox: I thought you were like 18.

Dennis Thies: A lot older than that. I can't help but mention the fact that hard seltzer has just had an incredibly profound effect on our industry. I brought up my years because it is the most profound thing that I have ever seen in my many years in the industry. It is atrocious, phenomenal, incredible, amazing, mind-boggling, and all of that rolled up into one. It's just, you got to throw 00:38:00it props.

Richard Cox: It's interesting that you talk about seltzer in that light. I think a lot of people would actually say the same thing about IPA.

Dennis Thies: Oh, I agree.

Richard Cox: It's impact.

Dennis Thies: Oh, I would definitely agree with that. There's a cartoon, a little bear or something says, "I'll have an ESB." Oh no, excuse me, "What's an ESB?" The bartender says, "Extra special bitter." The little, whatever it is says, "I don't like bitter, I'll have an IPA." I think that sums it all up right there.

Richard Cox: Yeah, it does. That's great.

Dennis Thies: Consumers are, the general consumer not the craft beer lover. Not you who knows your beer. I'm not talking to you, but you're outnumbered. The general craft beer consumer LDAC is the corporate legal drinking age consumer, doesn't know shit. A lot of craft breweries are putting bad beer in cans and 00:39:00putting it out there and it's selling, but seltzer is profound and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. We don't currently have one, but man, you think of about it-

Richard Cox: It's there. Yeah.

Dennis Thies: It is not going anywhere. But it's scary to think what that share could get to.

Richard Cox: Right. Yeah. We're already talking about what was going to be my next question, which is how the brewing scene's changed since you went into business and now we're talking about seltzer.

Dennis Thies: Yeah, I flipped it to seltzer. I think that that answer is twofold. It's changed in the grocery stores in that regard. It's changed here in terms of the number of people that are coming here, coming into our tap rooms, and the competition. Again, we went from four competitors to 44. I don't think 44 is a stretch, I think that's the number actually. Profound competition. I 00:40:00mean, where we're sitting Burial is right there. We have a great cider right here, I don't really consider it competition but like businesses competing in the same area. Burial, Urban Orchard Cidery, Funkatorium from Wicked Weed, Twin Leaf, Asheville Brewery, Wicked Weed prime location. Okay, that's all within-

Richard Cox: A block.

Dennis Thies: ... a few hundred yards.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Yeah.

Dennis Thies: I mean, that's crazy. I'm so thankful we're finally getting some restaurants down here too. The South Slope which only got tagged as the South Slope a few years ago is really something else. It's a really fun place to come. Oh, I forgot Catawba. It's over here too. I don't want to leave anybody out. I mean, they're right there.

Richard Cox: You lean and see them.

Dennis Thies: It's a sand wedge from here.

Richard Cox: Where do you see the brewing industry going in the next three to 00:41:00five years?

Dennis Thies: It would be crazy if we didn't see some kind of a shakeout because it has certainly... you talk about competition at the top end, but then you've got seltzer clipping away at that volume. There's got to be a shakeout. I think it's the breweries, we mentioned a couple earlier. I think it's the guys that weren't able to get their brewery onto a solid foundation in those formative years, and I'm talking the businessy stuff that my wife handles. Leases, property, financing, debt management, how'd you pay for equipment, your ownership structure. Did you have to take money? Are you to diluted? Those businessy things are going to erode when you don't have that crazy growth and 00:42:00when you can scratch out 5% increase would be incredible. That growth isn't there. Those things will start to erode at any brewery that doesn't have that foundation. The foundation will crack and they'll have to go to business. I don't wish that on anyone, but that's just a reality.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Some of that, what you're saying, might also grow out of it's such a homegrown industry. You're a brewer at home, so you can open a business without having the business acumen to make it a long-standing business maybe.

Dennis Thies: You don't see the numbers of breweries opening, so that's all plateaued. I don't want to keep throwing props to seltzer, but I think some seltzer tap rooms will pop up maybe from the big guys. I don't know.

Richard Cox: Interesting. Yeah.

Dennis Thies: I think bottles are going to make a comeback. Keep hoping for that 00:43:00because I got a very expensive German bottle filler down there. We do cans too obviously.

Richard Cox: And you bottle root beer.

Dennis Thies: Yeah actually.

Richard Cox: Yeah. What do you see as unique about North Carolina beer, if anything, or Southern beer broadly?

Dennis Thies: That's a great question given what we're talking about here and where you guys are coming from. I think North Carolina has the best place in the Southeast when it comes to craft beer. There's no question that it has beat the snot out of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Now, if you're in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, I don't mean to offend you, but it's true. You talk about Uli at Weeping Radish, Oscar here in town, even Jamie in your neighborhood deserves the lot of credit. Early success 00:44:00there with Foothills and Green Man and a lot of my peers and what's happened in Nashville is pretty legit. I think North Carolina firmly takes this place in the Southeast. Arguably, anywhere this side of the Mississippi. Northeast has got some good stuff, but North Carolina has carved out a nice little reputation and Asheville's probably leading the way, no offense to the Queen City or the Triad, the Triangle or the coast. But if you just look at the numbers.

Richard Cox: Yeah, well, Beer City USA too, right?

Dennis Thies: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Yeah.

Dennis Thies: Yeah.

Richard Cox: No, I understand. Do you have a favorite beer from a North Carolina brewery other than Green Man?

Dennis Thies: Yeah. I really like, well, I'm not going to say that one. It's a hot topic. I think that Hoppyum from Foothills. But I think Gaelic from Highland 00:45:00needs to get a lot of props. I would say two. If we're going to go malty we'll go Gaelic. If we're going to go hoppy, I'll go Hoppyum.

Richard Cox: That's fair.

Dennis Thies: That would be my go to.

Richard Cox: What would you say is Green Man's flagship or signature beer?

Dennis Thies: Well, that's dangerous territory these days. But we are one of the earlier guys, so we were built on flagships and all that stuff. The new guys, by design, don't have flagships. I think that I would have to say we're very, very fortunate to have three that were established early on in the early days of craft beer and got deep distribution out there, which all of our distribution was always North Carolina first always. We started with North Carolina. ESB, IPA, and Porter. Those are our three and we're very lucky to have those three. They've been around a long time.

Richard Cox: ESB and Porter's unusual to have as flagship.

Dennis Thies: It's very unusual. Yeah.

Richard Cox: Tell me about your beers. Tell me about those three.

Dennis Thies: Those three are very special. They were the first three bottles we ever released in 2013. 2013, that's older than half the breweries in North Carolina. It's an English style IPA. It's a very rich Porter and an extra special bitter is an English style as well. They're English style by design. We don't use the English yeast, we use American [inaudible 00:46:41] yeast strain. It doesn't have that... the English yeast just gives us this ester yeast that I don't care for. However, there are English hops in the ESB and Porter and all of the base malt is English, Simpsons Golden Promise, which is a Scottish 00:47:00[inaudible 00:47:02], English-malted top of the line malt that we have used for years and we're committed to. That's really what makes the difference is the malt. It's incredible. Top quality, is very expensive. I think we're one of, if not the largest, user of this particular malt. Again, it's called Simpsons Golden Promise and it's wonderful.

Richard Cox: Great. Do you have a favorite Green Man Beer?

Dennis Thies: It's the IPA. That's the OG. That was my first beer in Asheville, Green Man IPA. It's an English style. You don't hear about English style IPAs too much anymore-

Richard Cox: You really don't. It's an English beer.

Dennis Thies: But it's got the bitterness and it's fantastic. It's a [inaudible 00:47:44], darker, but that's the one. That's been our flagship for years, I love it. The Porter, however, gets the most respect around town. It's been voted as the best dark beer in Asheville for, I don't know. Ninja Porter sneaks in there every once in a while, but we've got like four out of the last five years-

Richard Cox: That's appropriate [crosstalk 00:48:04]-

Dennis Thies: ... or something like... that's a great point too-

Richard Cox: [inaudible 00:48:05] phrase. Yeah. What about that root beer you've been-

Dennis Thies: This is a great all-natural root beer that I'm very proud of. It's actually made and bottled in Tennessee for us because we don't make it here. It's been a lot of fun, we're selling a lot of it. It's just been a nice little addition to the tap room and give the kids a little fun thing to sip on and parents don't have to worry about high fructose.

Richard Cox: Yeah. Great.

Dennis Thies: Yeah. I'm pretty proud of that. We've also got a great cider that Urban Orchard makes for us that we're canning this week. It's been on draft for a long time. It's a fabulous product that they make for us.

Richard Cox: Straight apple or is it-

Dennis Thies: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Straight from the legendary apples of Hendersonville. We're getting into the wine business as well.

Richard Cox: Are you really?

Dennis Thies: Yes. We're going to have a canned Pinot noir and a canned Sauvignon blanc here in the next month.

Richard Cox: So diversification.

Dennis Thies: Yeah. I think diversification is key given what's happening with seltzer. But the more health conscious consumption now seems to be on everyone's mind. There's definitely a few folks come in here, they're not looking at calories. But gluten-free, calories, carbs, all this stuff is becoming more and more important and you have to address that. That's where the cider comes in for us. I love the cider. It's gluten free, zero sugar, but we also have failed to mention the fact that we have an alcoholic ginger beer that I'm really proud of called Gingers Have Soul. We're having a lot of fun with that brand, it's our biggest priority this year. An alcoholic ginger beer that's gluten-free, low in sugar. It fits that healthier for you type drinking. That's definitely where I 00:50:00see craft beer heading is more and more lighter, lower ABVs, lower... you know this, you see it in the grocery stores, I don't have to tell you. But that ain't going away anytime soon. The healthier for you drinking is going to have a profound effect. IPA and these pastry stouts, they're going to have a reckoning from a strictly caloric standpoint. Now, lower ABV or lower cal IPAs are out. We've discovered that style to be challenging to make to maintain that flavor. It's hard to get a 96 calorie full flavor IPA. It's challenging.

Richard Cox: I imagine. But I mean, what you're saying is really, I mean, you're a brewery and brewery can and seems to more and more places mean more than beer.

Dennis Thies: Sure, absolutely.

Richard Cox: I mean, that's really a lot of what you're saying.

Dennis Thies: That's the evolution of the brewery experience because more and 00:51:00more and more people coming to taprooms, but they come in groups and it's day drinking. You can't really drink a 280-calorie IPA.

Richard Cox: Imperial stout's probably not the best thing for the afternoon either.

Dennis Thies: I don't know how people do it. I mean, half of one at night, I can see that and go to bed, but definitely lighter beers, lower ABVs, lower calorie. I mean, our lager is our number one seller here, number two at the tap room. It's wonderful. But it's 4.2% ABV just like the Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, all those. It's got 122 calories and Miller Lite's 96 calories. So I mean, really counting calories here, but the real key is it's all natural. There's no preservatives or any of that stuff, and we don't pasteurize anything.

Richard Cox: Right. Great.

Dennis Thies: Yeah.

Richard Cox: That's all I've got.

Dennis Thies: All right. Thank you for your time.

Richard Cox: Yup. Anything you want to add?

Dennis Thies: Been a pleasure. When you're in Asheville come visit the Green Man.

Richard Cox: Thank you so much.

Dennis Thies: All right. Thank you-