Oral history interview with Doug Riley and Mike Rangel, 2021

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

Mike Rangel: Sure. I'm Mike Rangel. R-A-N-G-E-L.

Doug Riley: I'm Doug Riley, D-O-U-G R-I-L-E-Y.

Mike Rangel: For the slower viewers.

Richard Cox: For the slower Viewers. And today is Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021. I'm Richard Cox talking today with Mike Rangel and Doug Riley, president and co-owner of Asheville Brewing and director of brewing operations and co-owner at Asheville Pizza and Brewing in Asheville as a part of Well Crafted NC project. So to start, could each of you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Mike Rangel: Sure. I'm Capricorn. I was kind of the pizza part of this partnership. I wasn't a whole lot into craft brewing per se, but I could see 00:01:00that a lot of people were really excited about what Doug was doing. But I'm from Kentucky. I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. I've lived in seven different countries, but love Asheville. So happy to be here.

Doug Riley: Hi, I'm Doug Riley and I'm from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Northwest corner of Alabama. Grew up and lived there most of my life. Moved out, moved to Colorado when I was 22 and then Portland, Oregon from there.

Richard Cox: Oh, great. So how did you each become interested in the brewing industry?

Doug Riley: Well, I was living in Boulder, Colorado. And getting into craft beer and decided if I was going to start making beer, I should move to Portland, Oregon. Which is what I did. So I moved to Portland, took me two years or about 00:02:00a year and a half to get into a brewery. And I'm brewing ever since.

Richard Cox: Right.

Mike Rangel: I sort of backed my way into the craft brewery. I had a small pizza shop and... Sorry. I had a small pizza shop and was looking for a sit down location. And a place right down the street from us had a movie theater and a kitchen, and they were struggling with those parts of it. But what was doing well was the brewery aspect. Not well enough to pull the whole thing up, but... So wanting to get involved with that I met Doug and was just fascinated with the fascination people had with craft brewing and started to realize that craft brewers were slowly becoming the new celebrity chefs kind of thing.

Mike Rangel: And so that's how.. I kind of ran the pizza and the best decision I ever did is just let Doug run free. I didn't know enough about the brewing business to get in his way. Later on, as I learned more stuff I would get in his way and he would push me out of the way, which is again very wise.

Richard Cox: That's part of the point, right?

Mike Rangel: Yeah.

Richard Cox: So could you each tell us a little bit about the history of Asheville Pizza and Brewery?

Mike Rangel: Certainly. We opened up in 1995 as Asheville Pizza Company. In 1998 we moved into a location that was called Two Moons Brew-N-View. That was a movie theater, brewery, restaurant that was kind of fashioned after the McMenamins concept. The folks that had put the concept together were actually from Portland.

Mike Rangel: And that's where they found hot new brewer in Portland and brought him halfway back into the South. But the concept was... The guy running it just 00:04:00didn't do a great job. So it opened an opportunity for us to come in and we took over the pizza and movie stuff. And Doug ran with the brewery and pretty much a couple months after we went in there, we became partners. We knew we wanted to keep Doug around before somebody else scooped him up. And so made him an owner, which he love/hates sometimes.

Doug Riley: That's really about it. Yeah, January of '99, we purchased the business and went on from there.

Mike Rangel: We didn't have any money. So the business was about to go under. And so we basically signed on to over a quarter million dollars worth of debt so that they would assign the leases and the equipment over to us. So if we had lasted a week, we would've been on the hook for $300,000, but 26 years later, 00:05:00we're still here. I would never ever advise anybody to make that deal. It was the dumbest deal we've ever done. We learned a lot.

Richard Cox: Yeah. I'm sure you did.

Mike Rangel: But from that, it's been a fun ride. Asheville has always had a very much a foodie community and artisan, craftsman kind of thing. So the tourism was already there. So once people, I think started going with a farm-to-table and that sort of stuff, then what you put in your stomach or what you put on your plate transfers to what you put in your glass. And luckily for us, the water here is fantastic.

Mike Rangel: Doug can probably tell you a little more about the reasons why, but I know that the water that we draw from is the oldest continuous forest on Earth. Not the oldest, but it's been a forest longer than anything else. So the limestone beds are really hard. So the water comes out real fresh. Yo don't have 00:06:00to add anything to it. That's all I know about beer though.

Richard Cox: And I look over to you. Water.

Doug Riley: Water, yeah. I mean, it's not too hard, not too soft. Really gives us a blank canvas to produce quality beer.

Mike Rangel: And we've seen that with New Belgium and Sierra Nevada being able to move practically anywhere in the world and choosing to come into this area.

Richard Cox: So what would you each say your role is beyond brewing and [inaudible 00:06:45] food and beer?

Mike Rangel: Gosh. You mean, overall with the company or?

Richard Cox: How ever you'd like to interpret it. Yeah. What are your roles [crosstalk 00:06:53]?

Mike Rangel: I think our personalities have both worked well because we're both, I think pretty kind folks. We like to work with people, we like to work with. 00:07:00And so I think that part of it is the more I've been in business, the more I realize your business is a reflection of yourself. How you treat your employees, your product, how you take things seriously or not too seriously.

Mike Rangel: And so I think we like to consider, we take the beer seriously, but that's about it. We really want to have... We spend so much time at work. We want to be surrounded with like-minded, cool people and that's luckily... Asheville is full of those folks. So that's been nice too. But we definitely, when we find somebody we like, we try to hold on to them. So we've created a nice, tight brewing family of guys that we call our crew of misfits. But they do a phenomenal job. Wouldn't trade them for anything. Role wise, Doug takes care of the boring stuff. And I get to come up with the fun names and play with the 00:08:00unicorns, all that stuff.

Richard Cox: Boring stuff I assume is the brewing.

Doug Riley: Well, making sure they have everything they need to get their day done. Making sure all the equipment's properly working and just kind of just...

Mike Rangel: Taxes, scheduling.

Richard Cox: So you're not as hands on as you probably used to be.

Doug Riley: Right.

Richard Cox: That makes sense.

Doug Riley: But I just, yeah, again, just making sure they can get through the day without any hiccups.

Richard Cox: Yeah. So how would you actually describe, and now that you have multiple locations, so we can talk to that as well. How would you describe the location and space?

Mike Rangel: This location?

Richard Cox: Each of them. Yeah.

Mike Rangel: In Merrimon was where the original brewery was located. We moved the brewery here. So it's all under one roof. So we have two breweries under here. So it's movie theater, sit down and outdoor patio dining. We've been voted 00:09:00top 100 pizzerias for the last 21 years. And that's my part. It's the fun pizza stuff. But luckily our beer has even out shined our pizza. We won a couple of gold medals in the World Beer Cup for our Ninja Porter and stuff like that. And for our side, we're not super competitive in that world. But it's nice to win too.

Richard Cox: Yeah. It is.

Doug Riley: Having two medals in the same category is... Yeah. There's very few.

Mike Rangel: For the same beer.

Doug Riley: Yeah. For the same beer. Very few breweries that can say that.

Richard Cox: So what are the brew houses here?

Doug Riley: We have a 15 barrel brew house and then we have a seven barrel.

Richard Cox: Okay. And both of them are under this roof. Is that what you're saying.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. We used to run back and forth and we just realized we were 00:10:00running back and forth...

Doug Riley: Too much. And we purchased this property. So it just made more sense to have everything under one roof than to... And we also turned what used to be the brew house into a walk-in cooler. Which, our walk-in cooler was upstairs.

Richard Cox: Oh really?

Doug Riley: So that was always challenging.

Richard Cox: Yeah, I'm sure.

Doug Riley: So yeah, moving down here just had everybody under one roof and people could help each other. We could [crosstalk 00:10:38] get along without having one... We'd have to have two people at each brewery minimum. So we could have one person kind of going back and forth helping.

Richard Cox: Yeah, that makes sense. So how would you describe Asheville Brewing to people who are unaware of the brewery?

Doug Riley: I would say quality beer, quality food, fun and eclectic.

Richard Cox: Okay.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. I would agree with that.

Richard Cox: You agree with that?

Mike Rangel: Yeah. I really want people to feel relaxed. We're try to be welcoming to everybody. And I think people can see that we're a little... We try to have fun at what we're doing and not take ourselves too seriously. It's beer, it should be fun. And so we've played with with the logo or the mantra. Happy brewery, happy beer. That's always something I was trained along in the culinary background of when you're cooking, be in a good mood, be happy, be full of joy. And I feel the same way with our brew house and our brewers.

Mike Rangel: We want them, we encourage them to experiment. We encourage them to 00:12:00challenge even... Some of our recipes now are 24 years old. Which is ancient, but the Shiva was the first canned beer in Western North Carolina. It's our flagship IPA.

Mike Rangel: And we constantly ask people to try to improve it. And we made one with grapefruit, the Viva La Shiva, which is delicious. So it's fun to respect the old ways and everything, but still you have to stay adaptable. Especially as a little guy. That's our inherent advantage over a New Belgium or Sierra Nevada is that we can turn on a dime without having six months worth of planning and that sort of stuff.

Richard Cox: So I think you touched on this when you were just talking about your space and how you describe the brewery and when you [inaudible 00:12:59] tagline. How does this go into like what is the mission or theme of the brewery? 00:13:00Like I said, I think you just touched on it a decent amount.

Mike Rangel: Gosh, I don't know. I feel like we've always been pretty grateful. I think the early days for Doug and I were so difficult and every day or every payroll was like... We both signed our houses over to secure the loan, which... Had two very angry now ex-wives but I think we've always been really... Feel fortunate to be in the situation and not that we're any better than anybody else or anything like that.

Mike Rangel: So we want to play that forward with our staff and with our customers. We're very emotionally connected with our regulars and even with other breweries. This is a very family business and like I said, it amplifies 00:14:00the kind of person Doug is, amplifies the kind of person I am. Where we just, we really want to have fun and be friendly. And that's, at the end of the day, if you can make a great pizza and a great beer, that's awesome. But we'd much rather be known as our environment, our staff kind and those are the kind of things that you can't put a dollar on. There's great places in other towns that have awesome IPAs, but you have to put up with crappy attitudes or whatnot. And that's definitely not what we want here. We don't like the primadonna kind of lifestyle or...

Doug Riley: Yeah. That's I mean, pretty much... We want to, like I said, happy work environment so that when we come to work every day, we're in a good environment. And even more so to have our employees be in a good environment. Because they're definitely what keeps us going.

Richard Cox: Right. Yeah. Great. And you've already touched on this too but what were some of the major challenges you faced when you opened/took over the brewery? Because you already said that it was difficulty there. You just talked about the loan.

Mike Rangel: Gosh.

Doug Riley: Just really, it kind of fell into our laps and we didn't have anybody backing us. We had to do everything on our own. And that was the biggest hurdle, was just day to day. Making sure everything went well, make sure everything got paid. Make sure we got paid.

Mike Rangel: Sometimes.

Doug Riley: Sometimes.

Richard Cox: Everything's new.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: I think too, it was 1997, '98. [crosstalk 00:16:03]

Doug Riley: I mean, there were 600 breweries back then.

Mike Rangel: Even if you had the money, the resources were not there.

Doug Riley: Banks didn't really...

Richard Cox: Oh, they didn't understand even.

Doug Riley: Right.

Mike Rangel: And boiler inspectors had no idea how to inspect the boiler for a brewery. I know that we had a... Was it a sanitary welder we had? There was a guy in Knoxville that Highland would use that was a retired military guy. And when he would come to town, we would ask Highland kindly if they would ask him if he would stop by our place too. Because there just wasn't anybody in town that...

Mike Rangel: So now we have three universities within 45 minutes that are kicking out brewers and are doing quality control classes and how to run inventories and all that sort of stuff. It's amazing how much it's changed.

Doug Riley: And sanitary welding classes and...

Mike Rangel: The people that walk in the door now have so much more training 00:17:00than they used to. And there's more knowledge out there for them to... And then there's a lot of breweries. It's become a job. It's become an industry now. It's not just... 600 is like a blip. 7,800 is the juggernaut. And I feel there'll be a leveling where I feel like that's probably too many breweries. I think in the last few years, a lot of people have come into it as sort of like people buying Bitcoin, "Hey, breweries are making money." Like when they invested in the video, VHS market in the '80s or tanning beds. So we see a couple of those breweries that are pop up. Even Asheville hasn't been immune. Which is, why would you come to this town unless you're just an absolute, passionate... Have you met the DSSOLVR guys?

Richard Cox: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mike Rangel: I mean, those guys, that's what you need to come to this town. You 00:18:00have to believe in yourself, you have to have a vision. It's like if Doug and I decided to go to Philadelphia and open a Philly steak place just because that's where the money is. We damn well better be great at it. And so every time somebody new like DSSOLVR or Zillicoah, it always brings up the overall game of everybody. Wicked Weed was a good thing for us. For one, it allowed us to raise our prices.

Doug Riley: And it's also...

Mike Rangel: Can I say that?

Doug Riley: It's also raised the bar for sure. [crosstalk 00:18:46] I mean, I feel like we've always had a pretty high bar with our beers because it's...

Mike Rangel: But if the beer we made, if we served a beer that we made in 1999 now, we'd get slaughtered. The technology's changed and we've changed also, but 00:19:00for the good.

Richard Cox: So we can talk about 2020 for a minute, which was a year of challenges for the brewing industry because of COVID-19. How did you all approach these challenges, and do you see the decisions you've made affecting your business model in the future?

Mike Rangel: 2020 was, I think the further we get away from it, if we don't go down any sort of crazy, another... Will be a year that we see as... It allowed us to take a moment and breathe. Where we've been in sort of this... I've used the analogy that sometimes we were like Forest Gump running to the end zone. We never set, "Hey, if we hit X amount of barrels or we hit X amount of sales, then 00:20:00let's stop and go to the Bahamas for a month." You know what I mean? Because we're trying to keep up with the Joneses and all that sort of stuff. So this year allowed us to really realize that we'd kind of grown a little bit in directions we really weren't... We don't know why we went in that direction. So we've contracted our staff.

Mike Rangel: It's easier. We had 181 employees and now we got 79. And we now, I know every employee's name, I know their dog's name. I know their favorite video game. Because we work side by side and we didn't really have that. And that was in the early days, especially. They saw Doug and I in there seven days a week working. And so they jumped to the challenge too and stuff. So it's been great to kind of rediscover that. Going back to, Doug's taking more beer deliveries 00:21:00than he used to. I'm working bar shifts. And it's fun because we're connecting again with what makes... But we've pivoted in a couple of ways of cutting down our sales, but to be more profitable rather than, it was always sales, sales, sales.

Mike Rangel: And now we're really seeing that we can have one or two less sales people or stuff like that, if we don't really worry about it. And so that's been nice and we've gone to counter service. We used to run on a normal Friday night, we'd have seven or eight wait staff and three bartenders. And now we are just going with a counter service. People just come up and order. And it's seven less people. And with, right now in Asheville, the labor shortage is crazy.

Mike Rangel: We've known it's been coming. We've known forever the housing here 00:22:00is outrageous. So even if you're making $17 to $20 an hour, it's very difficult. So we were sort of moving in that direction and COVID just made us move a little faster. And get back to where each one of us can make an impact on a day to day basis. So it used to be Doug and I were doing everything. And then all of a sudden it was like, "Hey, we can bring in a beer sales guy and we can bring in a beer delivery guy and we can bring in a marketing guy." And now we're back to kind of doing all that sort of stuff. And I think we're better for it.

Doug Riley: For sure.

Richard Cox: So what role do you feel breweries such as Asheville Brewing have played in changes in the town?

Doug Riley: Again, like I said, we've always held the bar pretty high. So I feel like we've helped make quality better in Asheville. I mean, we were tied for a 00:23:00second in town, but I think the folks coming in after us definitely, they had to keep up.

Mike Rangel: We've always, I think... I've got, he's 21 year old now, but right when all this was happening, we found out we were pregnant when we first started going in there. And I knew always that I didn't want to be at a grocery store and have to hide behind potato chips because there was somebody that we had done wrong. You know what I mean? That we had not treated ethically, whether it was a staff member, whether it was another brewery and everything like that.

Mike Rangel: And I think that's Highland and Oscar Wong and Leah now and everything, of course they were the first and they really set this level of sort of the gentleman, gentlemanly brewer kind of thing. And I think Doug, it was 00:24:00probably like a year and a half into being open.

Mike Rangel: And Doug took a vacation for like four days and went to Ohio. And, and probably as soon as he went out of the county, we had a lightning strike and the power went out, the power came back on and it came back from instead of three phase, it came back to a one phase and I didn't catch it. Because I just would walk... I knew what the brewery was, but I didn't know anything else. I knew how to turn on the lights. So we called Highland Brewing Company and said, "Hey, Doug's far away and on his way to Ohio."

Mike Rangel: And they sent their electrician and Scott Pyatt from Catawba Brewing happened to be there. And in 20 minutes of me calling out came the John [inaudible 00:24:50] the head brewer and owner and Scott Pyatt, owner and head brewer at Catawba and their electrician. And they came in very quickly and they saved three batches of beer because Doug had brewed like a beast so he could go. 00:25:00You know what I mean?

Doug Riley: Because at the time [crosstalk 00:25:05] we would have two beers on because they would go before I could make another batch.

Mike Rangel: Good old days.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: So they saved... I don't know that it would be an exaggeration to say that they saved our business to a certain degree, because we were at a point where we were counting on the beers sold from each batch so we could buy more grain. That sort of stuff. So that was a really early example of the brewers here uniting and really coming together kind of thing. And so we absolutely, when it was our turn, we played it forward, Doug helped design, helped work with Pisgah. You guys talked to Wedge. Between John Light at Highland and Doug here, they probably had a hand in the first eight or nine breweries, just design wise 00:26:00and troubleshooting. So that's been a great. And it's continued. It's been wonderful.

Richard Cox: That's awesome. So how would you each describe your average work week? If you can.

Doug Riley: Fairly normal now. Previous it was 10, 12, 14 hour days, seven days a week. And so now it's fairly normal work week because we've got all the right people in the right places and we could focus on what we need and...

Mike Rangel: For me, it's gone to a lot more evenings because we've stopped doing lunches and we've kind of shifted... The labor shortage has put us down to 00:27:00kind of a six day schedule here and a five day schedule at our other location. But it's been really fun for me. And I really didn't realize how much I miss connecting with our staff and being on the front lines of actually serving the beer and seeing that kind of appreciation.

Mike Rangel: With the movie theater, I would always be there kind of glad handing and MCing and stuff like that. But it's been great for me to get back in here. So I'm probably six days a week, but I can go wander around. Which is great. Like I'll leave for three hours and then come back and so it's very flexible.

Richard Cox: So do y'all do any active community engagement work?

Mike Rangel: Lots.

Richard Cox: You have any examples?

Mike Rangel: Well, program wise, I mean we work with really every nonprofit and 00:28:00we try to do what we can to amplify what they do, by donating the theater. We do a lot of beers for specific events. Right now, we're actually working on a program that I saw in Denver with the local police department where they actually hand out free pizzas to people that help them. If somebody comes up and... We're kind of slowing down right now because it's a touchy subject, but the idea is for people to welcome the police and if they identify, if they see a suspect or report a crime kind of thing. But it's something I saw when I went to GABF in Denver a few years ago. Just read an article that they were doing and stuff.

Mike Rangel: And so we right now with... There's a police shortage and even if it's not a popular topic. And so we're looking, we're actually behind the scenes 00:29:00talking with Wicked Weed about bringing in a private security force on Friday, Saturdays and Sundays to drive a golf cart. Just providing an escort kind of thing, rather than we don't want to take a side on the... By any means kind of thing. But so those are sort of the things we're really fortunate that haven't been here as long as we have, we can approach the county commissioners and we can approach the mayor, the chief of police and they'll listen to us. And they know we have a track record of... We love this community. This community has absolutely opened itself up to us and given us chances.

Mike Rangel: And we take the name Asheville Brewing, as the name brewery for this beer city, we take that really, really to heart and stuff. And so I think 00:30:00for me, that's been one of the really gratifying things is to really work with different groups. We helped Our VOICE with a lot of their events and brought them to the Asheville Brewer's Alliance. And now they had last year, in 2019, they had 41 breweries that were doing the program with them, which is awesome. Against female violence and stuff.

Richard Cox: That's great.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. Those kind of things have been fun.

Richard Cox: That's great work. So how do you all see Asheville Brewing growing in the future?

Mike Rangel: I don't know that we want to grow.

Doug Riley: With our new space next door, that's really our focus on growth there.

Richard Cox: So what's the space?

Doug Riley: It's called Rabbit Rabbit. And it's an outdoor venue that will be having live music at, and then just outdoor space for people to come and gather 00:31:00and drink beer.

Mike Rangel: For example, Drive-By Truckers will be playing there in October.

Doug Riley: October 23rd.

Mike Rangel: We also have Modest Mouse.

Doug Riley: The night before.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. We have Modest Mouse.

Doug Riley: Jamie Johnson, Whiskey Myers [crosstalk 00:31:16].

Mike Rangel: [crosstalk 00:31:17] Band of Horses.

Doug Riley: Mark Rubley. [crosstalk 00:31:22] However you say it.

Mike Rangel: Bright Eyes. Gosh, I'm trying to think of what else. And then we'll be doing different... It has a 4,500 person capacity, but we're keeping it at 4,000 for the big, big shows. But we'll also be doing Shakespeare on the slope. We have the Asheville Symphony, that'll be doing an event in September.

Doug Riley: We do silent disco.

Mike Rangel: We do silent disco every Friday night with the headphones and a DJ up on the... So it's a blast. It'll keep us busy into... A couple, about three 00:32:00years ago we had an opportunity to go right outside of Charlotte. And it was an ideal situation. It was an old fire station, the price was right. Everything like that. And I think twice on the way up, we got stuck in traffic and it was like, "Okay, we don't like traffic." But I feel like too, every time we get further than 10 miles away from Asheville...

Doug Riley: It just doesn't...

Mike Rangel: It just, yeah. All of a sudden we'd be the outsider and everything. And so it was a really kind of a good moment for us to realize that we've grown way past what we had ever dreamed of.

Mike Rangel: And then now having this location and everything. So now we're just really, rather than looking outwardly, we're really going back and working on how do we be the best possible brewery for size out there, kind of thing. And 00:33:00that's been nice. And that's, again, that's one of the things that... I'm not saying I'm pro COVID, but it was one of the things that helped us have that moment of introspection.

Doug Riley: Clarity.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. Of just really saying like, "What are we doing this for?" And I just turned 30. I'm just kidding. But that's, why are we taking on new loans? Why are we expanding? What's it for? And realizing that we're super pleased, we're really happy. And we have a great community that we live in. We have wonderful, friendly competitors. That Tim Schaller from Wedge though, that guy... Don't get me started on... No, I'm kidding. No, Tim is the great. Tim is awesome. They're they're terrific. He would expect nothing more than for me to say something about him.

Richard Cox: I'll send him the clip.

Doug Riley: And for us, we sell everything we make in our backyard here in the 00:34:0012 counties. So it allows us to make sure everything's fresh, make sure there's nothing sitting on the shelf that we wouldn't want.

Mike Rangel: Yeah.

Richard Cox: So let's talk about brewing for a minute. So what resources have you drawn on to help you as a brewer?

Doug Riley: I mean, I draw on the MBAA. Master Brewer Association of America and...

Mike Rangel: What's that magazine, the New Brewer?

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: That was always like the good...

Doug Riley: And then the... Oh, gosh.

Richard Cox: That's okay.

Doug Riley: They do more technical... The MBAA does a lot of the technical and 00:35:00then locally just with our peers.

Richard Cox: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: ProBrewer has always been kind of a cool resource, especially in the early days when we were looking for equipment or specifics kind of thing. I think the craft brewing movement too, just the...

Doug Riley: The Brewers Association. Out of Boulder, Colorado.

Mike Rangel: I don't think any industry...

Doug Riley: [crosstalk 00:35:26]

Mike Rangel: I don't think any industry benefited as much from the growth of the internet. One, just because of the knowledge. Just because of being able to talk to somebody in California or in Germany about issues. And I would see stuff on ProBrewer about people going way into the weeds on some of the discussions about things like that. And then at the same time, people that had a beer, craft beer addiction started to be able to find that little guy in that little corner of...

Mike Rangel: I remember when I found Nebraska Brewing Company and I was like, "They even make beer in Nebraska." The Hop God. It was just like... That sort of thing. And it was probably our second year or third year, but we had a group of Japanese tourists that came in to our Merrimon Avenue brewery. And it was what? It was 600 feet, 600 square feet? 300?

Doug Riley: [crosstalk 00:36:27] not even that. [crosstalk 00:36:29].

Mike Rangel: [crosstalk 00:36:29] tiny.

Doug Riley: Smaller than a hotel room.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. It was tiny. And then these six guys got in there and they were taking pictures and they were standing up on the thing and they were having the best time. And speaking with them every two years, they were going on a brewery, like on a beer trek. And that year they had chosen Asheville and Asheville had all of... I don't even think Wedge had... Yeah. It was probably just French Broad.

Doug Riley: Just three.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. Four at [crosstalk 00:36:54].

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: And maybe Pisgah. So they had of all the brew places in the world had gone to Czechoslovakia two years before and now they were in Asheville. And 00:37:00we were one of the stops in this 400 square foot. And then we realized that people out there want to know about... And [inaudible 00:37:12] the first seminar I went to and they were like saying, "Write a blog, get on Twitter. Don't be shy. There are people that want to know about you."

Mike Rangel: And I always underestimated that. And we went to Seattle somewhere and somebody saw me wearing an Asheville Brewing shirt and Doug was 20 feet away. So I couldn't use him as my beer shield. Like, "Doug, they've got beer questions." But they came over and they're like, "I noticed you did this with the Shiva. And how did that release go?" And everything that we had ever said or written this guy knew. And he was just a beer nut. And there was many more of them. And so that was a really interesting thing.

Richard Cox: That's awesome. So how do you all approach a new beer recipe?

Doug Riley: Typically, we'd just figure out a style we want to make and then 00:38:00we'll pick our hops and our grains and our yeast and just go for it.

Richard Cox: Just build from there.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: And we want our brewers to be inspired. So if they try something to, not necessarily copy it, but play with it and mimic it or actualize it, or blend it into something that they like. And so we've had some famous, not so great beers that have gone through there and then that's fine. But we've also...

Doug Riley: Had some really great beers.

Mike Rangel: Doug and I [crosstalk 00:38:40], we've had some great beers because of tap space and because we've been around for 25 years. There's 10 or 20 beers out there that I wish we could have on all the time that... At least.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: And I'm sure every brewery's the same way. I can't imagine what pizza port... They make it, good Lord. They must have thousands of beers that they've...

Doug Riley: But after coming up with the beer itself, the name is typically the hardest part.

Mike Rangel: That's my favorite part.

Richard Cox: Tell us about naming a beer, because you have some interesting names for your beers. You're wearing one.

Doug Riley: Yeah. It used to be a lot easier. But now, with so many different breweries out there.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. We were sort of blessed/cursed that we trademarked Ninja. And then for the last 15 years we've been like ninjas. We've been fighting and it's...

Doug Riley: Relentlessly.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. Because every day some brewer somewhere's like, "You know what would be a great beer name? Ninja."

Doug Riley: It's like the Crazy 88 coming at us all the time.

Mike Rangel: Crazy 80. That's a good Kill Bill reference. That was the fun part with the theater too, with the movie theater and the breweries. We would show Kill Bill and we would make a special beer for it. Or we did a, when we showed 00:40:00Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the guys made an Aloha Mr. Hand coconut porter, which is phenomenal. And I don't like coconut, but it is phenomenal. We actually need to bring that. So we've done some. Some of the ones that we've done have been from movie lots.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Richard Cox: That's awesome. So you all were integral to the beginnings of actual Brewers Alliance, if I'm remembering correctly in 2009. What happened that to get the group started?

Doug Riley: We were just looking at trying to get people together to do more of... Be able to buy ingredients in bulk and be able to save money.

Mike Rangel: Yeah, resource sharing, knowledge sharing.

Doug Riley: And try to make the beer in Asheville the best that it could be.

Mike Rangel: Wedge had just opened up. And we were sort of all of a sudden at seven or eight, realizing that this is a small town and let's keep this vibe of 00:41:00everybody working together. So that we actually have a place where we can come in. And if there is an issue, if there is a gray area that we can discuss it without having it go into the blogs or, this brewery versus that brewery kind of thing and stuff. And it's funny, the ABA is having their meeting right next door, and now they're 141 members since when we started out.

Richard Cox: [crosstalk 00:41:36] Yeah. Do you see that their role has changed or is it still very much what you all just talked about?

Mike Rangel: It's changed. Gosh, it's changed so much from... One point, now there's so much information out there to have somebody that's actually putting it together in a format, almost like a newsletter for the brewers. Like, "Hey, in case you missed it, here's this grant. In case you didn't know, here's a beer 00:42:00festival in South Carolina looking for Asheville breweries. This brewery..." One of the nice things too was a couple years ago, I can't remember what the brewery was but they had a couple extra folks and they went to the ABA chat boards and they said, "I've got two great guys. I don't want to lose them. I'd love for them to find a new home." And New Belgium was like, "We'll take them." And boom. And then a year and a half later, New Belgium got bought out and they made stock dividends.

Mike Rangel: I wish I'd gone. But so a few years ago, Innovation Brewing ran into a whole hornets' nest with...

Doug Riley: Victory.

Mike Rangel: Bell's.

Doug Riley: With Bell's, yeah.

Mike Rangel: With Bell's. And you couldn't ask for, if you ever want to find like the sweetest, most perfect craft brewing couple, Skip and Nicole are... She was a bartender here for five years and every night everybody would go out to drink afterwards. And she was like, "I'm saving my money." And then, boom. They 00:43:00moved to Saluda, opened up this beautiful brewery. They're making great beers. Bell's came after them and the ABA was able to serve as sort of a shield and help them kind of gather their wits and they were going to early on, just submit because Bell's had innovation... They had a bumper sticker that said, "Innovative [crosstalk 00:43:34] since 19..."

Doug Riley: 1987 or something like that.

Mike Rangel: And they were Innovation Brewing. So they were trying to stop them completely from using that name, even though the town they're in is less than 10,000 people.

Doug Riley: And that Bell's had actually started a trade market, but never finished it. They never went through the final paperwork with it.

Mike Rangel: So they wouldn't even do a... Where they both can survive. Like they wouldn't say, "Yes, you can use it, but it belongs to us." They wouldn't 00:44:00even offer them that. So anyway, so the ABA at that point became sort of a legal instrument or shield for a very, very small brewery that would not have been able to defend themselves out there. And they actually ended up winning kind of thing.

Mike Rangel: So it's been a real adaptable kind of thing. In the last year, the director, Leah has been very much about grants and ways of helping, like putting together information and stuff for breweries to apply for loans. Or like this is what this brewery is doing in other places and stuff. What's funny though, and for COVID was, in Western North Carolina breweries were a net positive. We ended up with three more breweries after COVID than we did before COVID. Which is...

Doug Riley: And we actually, the brewery side actually had a better year than 2019.

Mike Rangel: But it's just weird. Yeah.

Doug Riley: We'll take it.

Mike Rangel: It's pandemic proof. It's been shown it's recession proof, now it's pandemic proof. So that was interesting.

Richard Cox: Amazing.

Mike Rangel: It's really amazing because we were...

Doug Riley: [crosstalk 00:45:14] can sales were way up.

Mike Rangel: And I guess so per capita consumption. Due to stress. But I was really concerned that there was going to be a drop of some... Especially all the people that opened right before and had loans and were ready for summer of 2020 and it didn't happen. So that's been... It was nice to see.

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

Mike Rangel: It's great. I think it's got growing pains. I think if you look at the things like the @ratmagnet, those sort of things. I think for those of us 00:46:00who have been in the business for a long time, I don't think that there is any industry that doesn't have misogyny or racism on some level. All the isms. Whether you are in craft beer or whether you're working at the circus.

Mike Rangel: So I think maybe a little bit of the veneer or the bubble of the reality of the... I think craft brewing is ahead of the curve and has always been very quick to be to correct itself. And this is another correction, but I think anybody who thought that it wasn't there before was kidding themselves. We're fortunate in that we've always been about 70% female on our staff. And then we have three female owners that would not let that fly. Would not let anything fly.

Mike Rangel: So I'm proud to be in the craft beer industry, I think a lot of the staying power, the creativity, the camaraderie has been amazing and continues to do. I feel like craft breweries compared to the big guys are incredibly involved in communities with nonprofits. Going back to last nice thing I'll say about Highland, but they started out very much in the nonprofit thing and it was easy for us to follow and it's our responsibility now to continue that sort of stuff.

Richard Cox: Yeah. How would you say the scene has changed since you got into the business?

Doug Riley: I mean, definitely with the addition of 7,000 more breweries it's 00:48:00changed some. But really everyone here still looks out for each other and we do the best we can to help each other.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. I think for Asheville, probably specifically the beer IQ of the average person, whether it's a 15 year old, which may be troublesome, but people know about IBUs and people know about ABVs and people know about South African hops and in a way that is incredible. And so I feel like that also creates... People can root out people that aren't genuine.

Mike Rangel: If you don't have a love for craft beer, you can't fake it for very long, especially in a community like this. Where you're surrounded by savants of 00:49:00the beer world. So I think that's one of the nice things is that it sort of has a way of finding out the fakers or the people that aren't in it for the right reasons, or aren't in it for the love of making the next great beer.

Richard Cox: Are there any trends that you all like or dislike?

Mike Rangel: Doug loves seltzer. He's crazy about seltzer.

Richard Cox: He looks like a seltzer guy.

Doug Riley: Nowadays it's like, anything goes. I'm kind of over being over different trends. Yeah. There's a need for all the trendy beers that are coming out and we just kind of do our own thing. And if it's something that we really 00:50:00get behind, then we make our own version of that style.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. There's always been an inherent snobbery to craft beer that's always been sort of, maybe works against it or the over... But I think that we feel like we've always tried to be very approachable and tried to be an everyday kind of beer. And whether it's from pricing to... And we want to make the beer we want to drink. So we don't make like a super expensive kind of stuff because that's just not...

Doug Riley: Well, some of them are.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. But we don't go to a graveyard at midnight and use crows' blood and...

Doug Riley: But we do, we have made beer from foraged fruits. Serviceberry saison, we made from one of our regulars and a friend that's a forager, which is 00:51:00all he does. Just for restaurants and breweries.

Richard Cox: That's great.

Mike Rangel: But I think we say whatever makes you happy. And like I said whether, if you're a seltzer person and that's what you're about, then there's some great seltzers out there. Now there's some great craft seltzers. So I think that's, for me because I've always been a sweeter beer drinker. More like a lager kind of thing. The IPAs were once a bridge too far. Especially growing up in Kentucky, bourbon is sort of the thing.

Mike Rangel: Beer is what you drink until the whiskey came out. SS drinking some of these complex IPAs in the early days for me was just like, "Why? I don't want to work. I just want to drink a beer. I just want to relax."

Richard Cox: [inaudible 00:52:00].

Mike Rangel: Yeah, exactly. Gosh. Yeah. But now I love a good West Coast IPA. 00:52:00[inaudible 00:52:07] the Hop God, all of a sudden I realize I do like hoppy beers. It was made in a Chardonnay barrel so it was... Have you ever had it? It's a great, great beer.

Richard Cox: Tell me about it.

Mike Rangel: Hop God. It's phenomenal.

Richard Cox: So if you all had a crystal ball, where would you see the brewing industry going in about 35 years? Seltzer?

Mike Rangel: The brewery seltzer industry.

Doug Riley: Yeah. It's hard to say. I feel like there are more smaller breweries like us that are opening and staying small because it's a good model for, if you're in a smaller town that doesn't have too many breweries, which I mean there's still some out there. But fighting for shelf space everywhere, fighting 00:53:00for tap space is hard. Yeah. So if you can sell most of your beer out of your own place and in your backyard, I think that's more of the trend.

Mike Rangel: That's your recipe. Yeah. I think it's the end of... Three years, and it's probably been the last five too, the end of the neighborhood pub. Everything's going to be the neighborhood brewery. And I think people can, the micro breweries are... We're always sort of thought to be... A brewery and growth and everything, but they're still doing just fine and you can get away with a one and a half system you just...

Mike Rangel: But I think that shelf space will become... You'll see less brands as things like, and not throwing darts at anybody. And then I think it's clever, like Oskar Blues, making Cigar City here and Oskar Blues in Tampa. And what's 00:54:00the one in Denver? Or the other one? But that all of a sudden, the blurring of, you'll be able to get any beer you want, any sort of... If you grew up in Buffalo, you'll be able to get your favorite Buffalo beer in North Carolina. At some point, it'll just be a lesser amount of larger partnerships that dictate most of the... I think there'll always be a little bit of shelf space, but I think what Doug's saying, the formula now, if somebody came out and wanted to go into packaging for competition, they would have to have a lot of money behind them.

Doug Riley: [crosstalk 00:54:41] we have five products on the shelf at Ingles. Which, they don't have that much space.

Mike Rangel: No, it's a lot of battles.

Doug Riley: So yeah, I think the neighborhood pub and brew pub is... Just like McMenamins in Oregon.

Mike Rangel: And that's where the best beers are going to be made because the packaging...

Doug Riley: 30+ pubs and hotels.

Mike Rangel: The little guys are going to continue to make the best beers or the most original, creative, experimental accidents that turn into beautiful things because they don't have the pressure of having it be canned conditioned, having it to be a flavor that's going to last for six weeks on.

Doug Riley: And if they count on it and it doesn't come out the way they think, and they've got all this packaging that they've already purchased and packaged up and people aren't very enthused about it then...

Richard Cox: Then there's that.

Doug Riley: Then there's that.

Mike Rangel: I think what will continue is it's an absolute great time if you're a craft beer lover. Your options have never been more...

Doug Riley: Available.

Mike Rangel: More available. Your ability to reach out and have something. And 00:56:00so I hope that trend continues and that the unification of so many brands doesn't start to bland things out a little bit. But I still think it's going to be a beer drinkers paradise for quite a while. In Asheville, you can go out right now and get 250, 300 different beers right now.

Mike Rangel: And of those 200, maybe never will ever see the light of the... That's a lot of pressure to go out there and keep drinking the new... Pisgah just had a Red Devil variant that was... I guess I shouldn't say variant.

Doug Riley: That's right.

Mike Rangel: Is that right? Okay. But that was apparently fantastic. That they made with cinnamon and people were losing their minds. But it was a one off. So everyone's like, "Oh, you didn't have that?"

Richard Cox: Too bad.

Mike Rangel: Which is great. You kind of want that.

Richard Cox: So is there anything you all see as unique about Southern beer or North Carolina beer? And you've been to Oregon, so you probably have an opinion 00:57:00about that.

Doug Riley: I wouldn't say unique really so much. Nowadays everybody's making everything. [crosstalk 00:57:21] So I don't really see North Carolina as staying out on like, "Oh, we make this ramp stout." Which I'm working on, but not very many savory beers out there.

Mike Rangel: Since we can't grow our own hops worth of... I don't think that we'll ever have a good regional sort of thing like Portland and the [inaudible 00:57:54]. But yeah, I don't [inaudible 00:58:00] any characteristics that would be...

Doug Riley: Although [crosstalk 00:58:05] a ramp stout. Ramps, typically just grow in the South.

Richard Cox: That would be Southern. So if you could pick a favorite beer from a North Carolina brewery, other than your own, is there one you would pick? And that might be like in the past week, which is how most people tend to think of it.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. I know what I've got. I've got Hi-Wire Lager in my fridge. It's very delicious.

Doug Riley: Typically Foothills Beers, I'm a big fan of. They make great beers.

Richard Cox: They make great beers. Do you all have a flagship or signature beer here?

Mike Rangel: We have our most popular beer, which is the Perfect Day IPA. And then we have our flagship, which is just second, but not by much. And that's the Shiva IPA. That's been pretty much our flagship since '98. I think that was the 00:59:00beer that brought people to our door kind of thing. And now we have the pleasure of people saying, "Oh, Shiva, that's my dad's beer." And they're 30. Like, come on.

Doug Riley: And we have the blessing from the Shiva temple that's in [inaudible 00:59:28].

Mike Rangel: In canton.

Doug Riley: Canton.

Mike Rangel: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Really?

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: That's for another interview.

Richard Cox: I think we can cut a schedule [crosstalk 00:59:38]. So what's your favorite beer that you brew or have brewed?

Doug Riley: It varies by season, but I drink a lot of the Shiva and I drink a lot of the Perfect Day.

Mike Rangel: The oatmeal stout is really good. The JT's.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Mike Rangel: This one here, is an American wheat. It's got like four different 01:00:00kinds of berries. It's called the Brewnicorn. And we do it every year for pride month.

Richard Cox: Oh, great.

Mike Rangel: It's just very colorful stuff, but it's really refreshing. It's one of my favorites that I like. And then I like the, before Christmas we do our Ninjabread Man. And it just tastes like a gingerbread cookie.

Doug Riley: Gingerbread spice.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. We actually make a gingerbread cookie, like a batch of cookie dough and then we put it into the batch and it tastes...

Richard Cox: Oh, that sounds awesome.

Mike Rangel: Yeah.

Richard Cox: What are you drinking?

Doug Riley: The perfect day.

Richard Cox: Oh, there we are.

Doug Riley: Yeah.

Richard Cox: A follow up question for you is, do you have a favorite recipe you've ever created? Or was the most proud of? Maybe that's really [inaudible 01:00:45].

Doug Riley: What I guess the Ninja Porter.

Richard Cox: Oh, really? That's why you're wearing the shirt.

Doug Riley: It's mainly with having the gold and the bronze from the World Beer Cup [crosstalk 01:00:54].

Richard Cox: Which congratulations. That's amazing.

Doug Riley: Which is...

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

Mike Rangel: We were in Denver and Doug was on his way to San Francisco.

Doug Riley: I was on my way to San Francisco.

Mike Rangel: For a concert.

Doug Riley: To see the Drive-By Truckers opening for Willie Nelson.

Mike Rangel: We had gone to a brew house that night and one of the guys in our group knew the owner. And so they had brought out a keg of a Pliny the Elder and I had never had much of it.

Doug Riley: It was probably at Falling Rock.

Mike Rangel: Yeah. It was after they [crosstalk 01:01:31].

Doug Riley: Which just closed.

Mike Rangel: Yes.

Richard Cox: I saw that.

Doug Riley: Actually just closing in a couple of days.

Mike Rangel: Yeah, on Sunday.

Richard Cox: Yeah. I saw that.

Mike Rangel: And they closed down, they brought out a keg and stuff. And so we were all very hungover the next morning. So we didn't even go to the award show. So we were watching Law and Order like the fifth... Like just laying in bed, couldn't find the remote control. And just had worst headache ever. And then all of a sudden like Walt and Luke from Wicked Weed...

Doug Riley: Started getting texts.

Mike Rangel: [crosstalk 01:02:02] Walt and Luke from Wicked Weed called and like, "Congratulations." And we're like, "What's going on? What did we do?" [crosstalk 01:02:09] We completely forgot about the [inaudible 01:02:10]. We turned off the phone. And then people started banging on our door. Like, "You guys won the gold." It was the craziest thing.

Richard Cox: That's awesome.

Doug Riley: Yeah. I started getting texts and phone calls.

Mike Rangel: That was really fun.

Doug Riley: In San Francisco.

Richard Cox: That was a good weekend for you.

Doug Riley: It was a great weekend.

Mike Rangel: Then we had distributors from England and from New York City that were just like, "How do we get your beer?" Like, oh my gosh. We're teeny. You can come by [crosstalk 01:02:35].

Doug Riley: They're like, "Even better."

Mike Rangel: I'll send you a growler.

Richard Cox: You're back to your 16 hour days. [crosstalk 01:02:41] Well, thanks guys. This has been great. I appreciate it.

Mike Rangel: Got it. You got it.