Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Hey team, welcome to another week, another episode of the Virtus Performance Podcast. Before we get stuck into the joy and the knowledge bombs and the banter of this week's episode, I'd like to thank all of you guys for listening. It's cool to keep getting messages and people stopping and chatting about different episodes of the podcast and different areas that we've been able to add value over the last 73 weeks. This week we have episode number 73, we have a returning guest, Grant Rogers from Jetty Road Brewery. We also have his lifelong best pal in the whole wide world joining us too, the head brewer of Jetty Road Brewery, Blake.
So these boys can say something that most of us can't, they've been friends since they were a couple of weeks old, they've been able to grow up and grow and maintain and build their friendship over the last 30 odd years. As you can guess, the dynamic of people who have been friends for that long is always quite interesting, there's always a lot more going on than meets the eye sometimes and it's really cool to see how close these two boys are growing up together and now going into business together. So we took a little bit of a deep dive into that relationship, into what it's like, what their roles are, how it works, what the dynamic looks like.
We also talked about their industry and our industry and different areas that they're trying to change and I guess the similarities that they have had between businesses like Virtus and Common Folk and how we've kind of been able to build friendships around having common goals and the same values around business and life. So I really enjoyed this episode, I hope you do too, I guess it's time to get stuck in. Enjoy. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell.
The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Lads welcome. Afternoon, evening. Evening? It's evening. How are we boys? Cheers to you all. So we're at... You can't not cheers to the brew. No, and you got a drink before you put it down, right? It's true, yeah. Technically you're supposed to look at each other in the eyes, but we'll let that one out. Hang on, I haven't taken the gaze away from you, my friend. That's right, I'm just sitting here, like chocolate buck.
Oh hey, hey Grant. How's it going? So we're at Jetty Road Brewery. It's Friday night. Evening, apparently, we decided that. Same, same. And I'm with the brain. Brains? The brains behind Jetty Road. No, the brain and the alcohol. You're an alcoholic, Grant. Apparently so. So what's it like having a beer? And Grant, we've had you on, so I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Blake. What's it like? I would say we don't have a brewery. Pretty much. Yeah, we're pretty close. We've got a lot of... It's equipment. Yeah, we've got a lot of stuff in place.
A lot of shiny tanks. A lot of shiny tanks and a lot of people drinking beer on the other side, so that's the thing about us. That's the thing about our brewery. It's a lot of money going the wrong way, but it's also looking good. It's pretty close, and we'll be brewing beer here soon. And we drink beers. So you're a brewery that doesn't brew their own beer. We brew our own beer. We've got a very small system that does it, and we pretend that we are a brewery. I love that so much. That's fantastic. So for those that have been listening to the podcast for the last year and a bit, Grant was on somewhere around 39, I think.
The episode was called "Clusterfuck." I think we actually... I think we had you on the afternoon after you opened the brewery. Yeah, opened the venue, yeah. Opened the venue, yeah. So now we're at the stage where the brewery's about to kick off. Yeah, I don't know how you did that. Did you know the actual brew house was going in this week? No. It's been an absolute chaos. Well, it's not been chaos. It's been organized chaos. Blake's a lot more organized than I am. Yeah. But you've picked those times where each of us have been absolutely rent.
Yeah. Blake doesn't sleep. This is clusterfuck. This is clusterfuck 2.0. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I haven't been involved. The clusterfuck returns. Yeah, exactly. For Blake. He's the big rent. But it's gone really well so far. What's it like doing something of this scale with your best mate? Easy. Okay. And the next question. Well, no. Okay. The first part of the question is what's the point, like how is it doing something of this scale? Yeah. Doing with your best mate. Easy. That's cool. We've known each other since we were two weeks old. Yeah. Do you really know anything when you're two weeks old?
Well, no, but you've got a lot of time to work on it. We've had every argument you can have where basically like having a family, so like I know that we don't see eye-to-eye on stuff and you can go through that pretty easily because we know exactly where we stand with each other through literally 30 years of life. So, you'd just get some wanky, but I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. It wouldn't be easy enough to do it with anyone else, whereas it's easy with us because even if he's saying one thing, I know what he's saying might be something else.
You know what he means, right? Yeah. So, it's easy. Easy. That part of it's easy. The rest of it isn't. The whole like running a business and producing beer and selling it to people and… And trying to upgrade gas meter, water meter, electric meter. It's like dealing with Telstra three times over. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be fun. What about you? How's it been dealing with this peanut? Yeah, good. I think… That was less emphatic, by the way. No, I think it's been really good. As Blakey said, I wouldn't do it with anybody else, and it's taken
us more than six years to get to where we are, and it's taken us a lot more money, a lot more work, a lot more time, a lot more stress, a lot more gray hair than what we probably do, which is everybody else in business that does things like that, but… Ignorance is bliss at the start, right? Yeah, exactly. But I think, you know, the way the business runs and the way it's set up, I think it's perfect. Blake weighs behind all of our beers and passion, and we both agree with that and the strategy
and the vision, but I do the boring business stuff, I follow the paperwork, I do the numbers, I manage the people, and Blake focuses on the beer and driving that forward. I think just having an understanding of what we're good at and the areas that we are responsible for works really well, and 30 years of going at each other, going on benders, going to primary school, high school, traveling together, all that sort of stuff rolls into, you know, and I think, you know, people say they're going to business with your family, well Blake's family, but
we need to set boundaries and know what you're good at and when to have the discussion and when to pull each other up, and then know when you're having a bad day. So it's worked so far, pretty good. You can't be successful in business without trusting someone, and how can you trust anyone more than someone you've known for your entire life? I didn't bring the shout out bell, but if these two kiss at any time, I'll start clapping, so you guys will know. This is the most love I've seen you two share with each other. We'll get it out of the way.
I've been talking to my parents now, they've listened to two of my podcasts that I don't speak very well, and I'm very aggressive and submissive, and I swear a lot, so I'm just trying to be nice and contradictive. Aggressive and submissive, yeah, fairly two contradictory terms. All at the same time. So when did you know, and this is a question to both of you, when did you know it was going to be what it is? Never, it's evolving. Everything kind of evolves as we keep moving forward, and we've got some stuff in the pipeline that
will eventuate over the next 12, 18 months, we didn't expect 12 months to go, and there's always plans and there's always moving forward, but everything, the thing about Craft Beer as well is it's evolutionary. It's so new that everything is changing and everything's new all the time, so to say that we knew exactly where we wanted to be and what we wanted to be is life. It's a tough one, right? You just roll with it and tell what we've got and dealt with and we're happy with where we're at. How did, and I think Grant's kind of like half told this story, didn't tell it very well, so I'm going to ask you, where did it start?
How did it start? Was it just genuinely just a love for beer? I think that now where we're at, there's so many people involved that started differently for every person. I started homebrewing with my, now ex-boss, but one of the original members of Tootie Road, and that's kind of where it started for me, it was just homebrewing. And then from that, I got a passion for it and sort of built the bar as a cabinet maker at Monty Brewery, and that sort of led me to being introduced to the head brewer and the owner and
kind of, I just offered them a time and did the shit work and raked bins out and swept the doors and closed tanks down and then kind of got to the point where they let me brew with them and got to the point where they let us brew Jetty Road there. That's cool. That's where I started, but that's substantially different for Grant in terms of where the idea starts with him and where we kind of intersected is what I guess Jetty Road started as and then the story kept moving forward from there. Was it where
you're going to have a brewery or was it just like, okay, we're brewing beer out of Moynton now, this is cool, what's next and then just like step by step from there. We wanted a brewery before we started brewing in Moynton. So that was always kind of like a dream. We had this factory. So we had this factory, so we had our ambitions to be where we are and what we're doing, but I think it's the pace in which it's growing is far exceeds what we expected, which is good. Yeah. Really good. Not a bad problem to have.
Yeah, exactly. So, but I think, yeah, what we've got here is exactly what we planned to have straight off the bat. I think it's a bit bigger than some other ambitions that we had from other shareholders, but they're really on board now and I think it's, you know, it's, yeah, at ease. We had a meeting, like we're literally sitting on the table. I think we had our most of our board meetings when we started and we got, you picked these up for about 40 bucks at Bunnings too. And it's not well walked after. We actually had a meeting up here on a Friday because we actually couldn't get a table in the venue because it was packed.
Good problem to have. So we sat here and it was a bit of a surreal moment because, you know, we've created something where people can come and celebrate and, you know, share in the good life, which we created and we believe in. So it's really, really cool. Is it, do you guys give yourself that chance to kind of stop and reflect and look at however it's going? Not a chance. No, and even if you try it, it doesn't work. Not really. I don't think that'll ever happen. Ever? I honestly don't. We take, we take, again, it's an evolving beast all the time, so there's always something to do and there's something achieved.
Always. We live in that middle of that place the whole time, so it's so quickly moving that we never actually sit there and necessarily enjoy it. Every now and then we try and, uh, try and take some time out to, you know, recapture the friendship that we have outside of this place. We've had pretty stressful weeks sometime and like, you know, we went and played X-Golf and basically challenged each other, put your phone face down on the table, the first person to touch it buys a round of beers. Good. And the first person to talk about work buys a round of beers.
Yeah. Legless. Yeah. 15 seconds later. Yeah. Pretty much. I keep looking at me because you know I picked up my phone. I know it was you. Yeah. Yeah. You had your phone in your hand eight seconds ago. I was just checking something. Dude, but, like, what's it been like as that friendship's evolved over the years to go from being mates that kind of had a dream of opening a brewery to, and if anyone hears background noise it's because we're in a brewery, but deal with it, um, how does it go from being mates that wanted
to open a brewery to mates that are now running a brewery and soon to be fully up and about operational, do you guys have to force that hand in terms of looking after each other and, like, spending time with each other or do you just kind of, like, take it as it comes? I think it's more like we still understand each other and, um, I know when I've probably put pressure on I've gone too far across the line, so I just pull back and Graham probably knows the days that he doesn't need to talk at
me or talk to me, so, um, in terms of in business it's fine, it's just we don't have a lot of time in our lives to even see our partners, let alone, you know, spend time just purely as friends, but I think we still have, in terms of business, a really good balance of friendship within them as well. So we don't look at each other and talk business, we talk as mates within business. And I think it's really easy to try and separate that all the time, you don't necessarily have to if you're doing cool shit together, whether it's business or whether it's out of business doesn't really matter.
And also like, you know, remove Graham from the whole thing, like I think both of our philosophy is that we want to make, and I think the third is just the same as like business as family, like the best way to get, you know, the most out of yourself and the most out of everyone else that you work with is to create a family where everyone is appreciated, everyone works together and everything is collusive and conducive and everything is together, so, um, you know, regardless of whether we're butting heads on something, it's all still within the same dream, the same push forward.
Yeah. Yeah. Can, like what, what is the, I guess, vision? And this is a question for both of you. I want Graham, I want Blake to answer it first, like what's your, like the vision for Jetty Road? What do you want it to be? Where do you want it to go? He said you, and I'll just tell him what he says. I said you. I think, I think this is always like fractionally different for different people because obviously granted a different sector of the business than I am. Can't give the same answer, by the way. Absolutely can.
It's the rules. What if I agree with it? What actually, before he goes, there's been three instances this week where we have been asked by investors or people outside the business about something about this business and without even, not that we sit down and go, right, this is a strategy, this is what we're talking about, this is the points we hit every time. We answer the question exactly the same. You're just on the same bandwidth? Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Which is, which is actually, I think that was yesterday, it's really comforting to know that it doesn't matter who asks, we don't have to have that.
And of course it's, it's good to have different answers from different people, but to know that we're on that same strategy and the big picture without even like, you know, organically, it's really exciting. Or it's sad. Or it's very sad because we spend way too much time together. It's pretty cool though. The thing for me is, from a beer point of view, I want to be the best I can be at making Jeter a beer the best beer it can be. And then on top of that, it goes back to why I got into it. And for me, beer and pubs, it's all about people coming together.
And it's very rarely in our venue that any pub, you see people sitting there, sitting on their phone. Whereas beer culture is quite similar to coffee culture. But if you go to a coffee shop, people are on their phone. Whereas in a brewery or a bar or a pub, people are actually sitting around talking to each other. And I guess that's part to do with alcohol and losing inhibitions. But it's the last kind of avenue where people actually just get together and talk and talk freely. And it doesn't have to just be the same old question of, what did you do today?
How's your job? How's your wife? How's your wife? How's kids? People start diving into the other stuff. Yeah. And that's, for me, that's the biggest thing about alcohol. And that's why I love making beer is because I actually get to bring people together for a job. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. It's cool to kind of see that. See that vision kind of take hold like we're sitting up here in the above the cool room next to all the, what are those things called again? Shiny tanks. Shiny tanks. Next to all the shiny, they're actually really shiny right now.
I'm glad the managing director answered that question. And you can kind of see into the venue and you can see everyone kind of hanging out and talking shit. And I can't see anyone on their phone, so that's one to the brewers and zero to the coffee snobs who everyone sits on their phone looking at their coffee. People start the day. They need to catch up. They need to get everything going. That's what coffee's for. And again, that's a generalization. There's plenty of places you go to in coffee shops where everyone's obviously interactive. Yeah. Mainly common folk where Virtus and common folk collide.
We collide a little bit. A little bit. So it's sort of city right now. Yeah. Yeah. And every other one. We can't come here. We can't come here for breakfast after training in the morning, though. No, that's just true. It's a little far away. It wasn't a slide on coffee culture. It was just that there's... You're throwing shade, man. It's okay. You go on public transport. Anywhere you go in life, everyone's on phones. Yeah. Even this tool goes to common folk every morning and he sits on his computer. No more. Oh, so now you're not working?
No. He's been pretty good. I started four, mate. You started four? I started four to catch up on those emails and then I go to gym. It's been fairly present this week. Very present. But I'm expecting you, Grant, to do what Grant does and knock over a week and then Monday morning we'll come around and 6 a.m... This isn't a slamming session. I don't need this. 6 a.m. we'll come through and you'll still be asleep. But you've had a good week. Yeah. I was here last night and I locked up so technically I just didn't have the...
Didn't see you this morning. Fits all. Fits all. Fits all, yeah. Funny what happens if you get three hours sleep. No, no. That's the best thing. I was late here so I thought it's not worth getting up and I wanted to get my sleep because of this craze. I feel like it's just Kaye struggling. Yeah, true. Well, yeah. And the boss, sorry. Shout out to the boss. So from your end, Grant, is the vision being kind of like, are you moving towards the vision? Is everything kind of going the way you wanted to from a business point of view, yeah?
Absolutely. Yeah. I want as many people to experience G-Road and not just the beer. The beer is fundamental, but not just the beer, but what Blake was talking about is that... Connection. And that's the thing, is the whole thing about independent brewers and craft beer is that that's what everyone's driving to be, is that try the beer that we love making, but also the atmosphere that it produces. And I think that's... We just met Ocean Reach Brewery in Phillip Island today and we had a beer with him and we just put his brewery in and him and Blake started talking up straight off.
They'd just put a brewery in, talking the same thing. We sat over in their venue and had a chat and it was just no phones out, just chatting. That's cool. Reliving what they're going through and yeah, it was really cool and I think that's the exciting part. So my vision on a big picture is I think that there's heaps of craft breweries, but we have independent craft breweries because there's a difference now. I think the big guys have now used that word... Craft. Craft, which is... Buzzword? Buzzword, exactly. So independent is something really important to
us and I think growing independent craft breweries in Australia is massive and I think there's one popping up every five days now, which is just awesome. But it's the taking to the big guys, you know? Boulders killing it. They're doing heaps, millions of litres a year nationwide, but 30 CB, smashing out 16 million litres in Victoria. So I want more people to try independent craft beer and that's my task and that's the big picture for us. So it has to work with every other independent brewer to get there and I don't know, anyone wants to do collaborations and events in the same venue, all that sort of stuff.
I just want to be really cohesive and collaborative. It's a cool way to look at it because I think it's really easy for the little guys, for lack of a better term, to kind of like butt heads and kind of fight amongst themselves. But if you've got a bigger picture in mind, you realise that all the, isn't there like two or three companies that own the majority of the beer in the world, something like that? So there's no point fighting amongst yourselves and squabbling amongst yourselves when if you're collaborating with each other and actually growing your slice of the industry, then it's only going to make what you do stronger.
Well, the thing about that as well, and this is what I'm really passionate about, is that people need to understand is that you go into a pub and you see your cart and draft and your, what else is there, your cart and drive, your Great Northern, your little creatures. Those guys are there and they've paid money to be there and they also have a lot of clout behind them. Whereas you see a craft beer and it doesn't matter whether you like the brand or you know of it or not, those guys are fighting for that one, we're all fighting for that one tap at the end.
So all of those breweries that you don't know are fighting for that one tap. And if you go in there, try it out, give it a go because you don't know what it's going to be like. And that's the exciting thing about craft beer as well because you might try it completely in beer you don't like drinking, like your ambi or IPA, it's not just your draft or your pale ale, they're trying something different or they're doing something different in another brewery. It's not just made it, you know, 20 million litres of beer made in one big batch and they're just fucking it out the door.
That's all the same, yeah. It's made with love and care and, you know, absolute passion. I'm not saying that, you know, those guys that brew the beers in Calabropa aren't doing the passion but it's on a smaller scale and there's more people behind those businesses. And for us it's about education, like, I love the education part of what we do because, you know, you can come here and see exactly where we brew it and how we brew it and what goes into it. Yeah. And, you know, then people were more inclined to go and try
and buy that from the pub down the road and go, right, right, where's that independent local beer that we want because we know exactly how it's made versus a multi-national. And, like, at the end of the day we're not fighting for that one tap it in the bar, we're fighting for the other seven. Yeah. Yeah. And we want all of us to have those taps, not them. And, like, we want it to be a fair fight. I'm happy to fight with Carlton over taps, I just want to fight in a fair fight where there's not a contract for the other six.
It's about the quality of the actual beer and what it means rather than... I'm happy to sit there and go against every other craft brewery in Australia and go, right, oh, the best pale goes on tap, no worries. Yeah. You know, this demographic prefers that pale out, put them on. But, like, I'm not happy to go against a multi-national that goes, we own all these taps and you guys get two on the end, like, that's unfair. Yeah. Whereas, you know, I'm happy to go toe-to-toe with Carlton Draft. I like that. If it's in the fair fight.
Are you starting to see a little bit of a resurgence with pubs and brew houses and things like that looking for more craft beers, like independent craft beers rather than going for the big dogs? Or is it kind of money wins kind of situation? I think it's definitely, it's shifting, but I think that's also been somewhat mitigated by the buy-outs of Pirate Life, Four Pines, Feral, is the whole thing is to then try and tie those tap points up again and offer them a craft version that they would already have been buying going right over.
If you surveyed enough pubs in Australia and want to write Feral, Pirate Life and Four Pines are the numbers, like the one, two and three on tap in every other venue, buy those three, then we can offer them the tap deal again. Yeah. And they don't have to change anything. Yeah. Okay. You've had your hand on this box mate, we've been complaining for days. No, I just think it's really interesting because I find it funny, funny and kind of like expected that everyone, in every industry, like the little guys kind of are frustrated by the way, like the clout or the ownership that the big guys tend to have over such a large chunk of the industry.
Like from a fitness industry point of view, like we've got our anytime fitnesses, F45s, Goodlives, Jets, all of those kind of like big guys that just go, yeah cool, we'll open 48 different little gyms in a space, like a 50K area, right? This might sound strange, but I feel like we're fighting the same fight. Yeah, 100%. Virtus is creating a family. Yeah. A community of people. Exactly. Whereas these guys are just going, we're collaborating. Yeah. We're going to have to talk more about craft beer because I'm a craft beer wanker, right? I like talking about
philosophy as well, like I feel like you guys are creating something and you especially, obviously you're driving a standard that you believe in and you're also driving people to you because of your philosophy and that you want to be inclusive of people, not exclusive of people. Yeah. You're not sacrificing on quality to do that. It's almost a like, it's almost a, they miss the big kind of, we call it like big, big box gyms is kind of like one of the terms we use and like you guys probably have something similar. Dickheads. Fair. Don't rub anyone the wrong way, but carry on.
Yeah, that's it. Like it's kind of like a, they miss, they miss the point of it all and like, you know, having that like they'll get a couple of big fitness influences that are doing shit the wrong way anyway, and they'll miss the whole point of understanding the need for, understanding the need for a pale. Thanks Grant. Grant's going to get beer. You're pretty much in charge. Good. I like it. What are you talking about? They kind of miss the importance of the community and a connection and the quality that most people and you know,
most of the managers and the coaches and things like that at those big box gyms, the reason they got into the industry in the first place was connection with people that they haven't necessarily gotten to know yet. It's the desire to want to change people's lives. It's the, you know, the importance of community and family around training, which is what they're doing. And like for me now, like I'm at the point where the training and the sets and reps and the exercises we do, it doesn't fucking matter really. If you create an environment where people
want to be and people want to connect with each other and then you give them a really good fucking product at the end, then you're doing the right thing for the right reasons. And that's what the big guys miss, I think, sometimes. I think they also like, if you walk into a, so whether it's Calc draft or it's whatever fitness I'm not going to name it because like, oh man, it's fucking heaps. Yeah. First time. Good luck, right? Yeah. All those 24 hour gyms, all that sort of stuff, they run on, all right, what's our margin?
How can we do the best thing for our, and like I haven't been to the gym in 10 years and I started coming to the gym again for a couple of reasons. One, because I needed a mental escape from what I'm doing. And two, because I knew I could come to Virtus and I could have not just going to the gym to lift something heavy and put it back in the same place. Yeah. It was to, there's a community sense there. There's also a sense of care there. People actually communicate. It is a pub without beer.
Yeah, I like that. For me, that's good. For me, like the best part. On our new marketing, marketing material, we are a pub without beer. And for me, the best pub in the world, like when I say best pub in the world, it's a TV show, but because for one reason it's not run on margin. Yeah. And when I tell you what it is, you won't understand. And the other one is because it is literally a family. It's the cheers bar from Cheers. Yeah, good. If that was run as a business, they'd be broke because there's six people in there and they're not fucking making money.
If they love each other. Everyone goes there every day and they are a family. And that is exactly what we do here. We just try and have a bigger family. And I feel like that's what Virtus does and you guys might have a bigger family. We do what we do because we love it. And then that attracts people that are going to love it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really like the family becomes, starts becoming a little bit selective, like selective in terms of people that will contribute and people that are like-minded that are all believing the same things.
And, you know, I think I used to like people call us a cult at times and call common folk a cult. And they're probably, I'm sure that like that word's probably been thrown around with you guys in terms of like growing that community around like on the peninsula. Like that's kind of almost if you look at it the right way, like almost a badge of honor because you're growing a culture of people that all want the best for each other and all want the best for the community and for the place you're in and for this like suburb or area that you're in.
And if they're doing that and wanting the best, then everyone wins. There's no like- If you look at every group of people in the world, there is a exact opposite. So you could be a Buddhist and you've got your opposite. It doesn't matter what your idea is. If there's enough people together at once, you've got the exact opposite of you hating it. So it doesn't matter what you do. You're going to have enemies. All you've got to do is be true to what you want to be and you will find the people that want to do what you want to do and- Just be genuine.
Yeah. Create something that you love and that is consistently you. Whereas the big joints go, "Righto, how do we get the best margin out of this?" And it doesn't matter about the people that are involved. If we get enough people involved, they don't matter. I think capitalism eventually wins out if it gets to a certain size. Do you guys foresee a future where you're starting to teeter on the edge of being that size? I think size is irrelevant. Good. Because there's been so many different differentiations of this is why it's now an independent brewing, not craft beer or anything like that because there's too many different ways to define it.
It shouldn't matter how much beer you make. We're an independent company and we could make 100 million litres a year, but as long as we stay true to the ethos that we feel like we want to be doing and it is based around the exact same thing as what we're doing, sitting in a shed at the moment, standing over top of a couple of stainless steel fermenters, it shouldn't matter whether that's 10 million or 200,000 litres of what we can do here. People don't know either. No. No, people don't know how much beer you produce. It's about the philosophy and what you believe in, I suppose.
And then it's about independence and what message are you sending? We're sending a consistent message that we're A, independent, but B, we're about bringing people together and having a good time and doing that through a product that we love. It's relatively delicious, so good from you. I try. That's as good as it's going to get to him. I keep it crack. Okay, so every session that you do training, is it the best thing you've ever done? Oh, no. Do you feel like you can prove? Your whole philosophy is be excellent and be better every day. Yeah, good.
That's exactly the same thing as me and if I go, "Yeah, man, that's the best pale ale you'll ever drink," I can't improve on that because it's the best thing you're ever going to drink. Every time I run a session, I go, "Okay, this is going to be the best session I've ever run." Every time I finish a session, I'm like, "Okay, that was shit. I got to improve here, here and here." Every time I write a program, I'm like, "Best program I've ever written." And then a week in, you're like, "Okay, that sucked. That was rubbish.
This was in the wrong spot." Whatever. I assume you guys are exactly the same in terms of the need for quality. You'll probably never be happy with it. And if you are. Or happy with it, you'll never be super duper like, "This is the best beer you ever drink." You know better than me. What's the stat on business that failed in the first couple of five, seven years? I couldn't tell you because I don't give a fuck about that information. It's such... Who cares? It's a simple reason. It's not good statistics, so why focus on it?
I get your point. I understand what you're saying. It's not good. The flip side of that is why it's important. I know you're asking me for a reason. You're popping you up. You're meant to back your mate up and you gave him fuck all. That's typical. That's my life. Continue. But I knew that was going to happen because we know you got further. But companies fail because they don't stay relevant. They don't improve. They don't continue to try and get better. They go, "We've got a good thing. That's it. Done. We've done it." The good thing about beer is our pale ale sells well.
But Mornington's pale ale sold brilliantly for the first six years and there was nothing else down here. And they're nationwide, all that sort of stuff. But you can't just go, "Righto. We've got something good and that's it. Done." You've got to stay relevant. You've got to stay pressing out. My philosophy in beer is we have the core range of staples that people go, "I'm not even going to drink that. That's cool." So you've got the pale. You've got the three-quarters IPA. I would say it's 7/8 IPA. Did you ask for one, by the way? I gave you an IPA.
I asked for an IPA. It's not very efficient. It's a little high and then capital V8. I didn't design the packaging. They spelt it wrong. Ah, so it's kind of like a just covers up your mustache. So IPA is about to be 6%, right? IPA is by definition, if you want to win an award, 6%. Yeah. So you're just going the... hits the route of going, "You know what? We don't want to win awards. We just want to have a good beer." I want to make a beer that people A) enjoy drinking, B) feel like they can have more of.
And again, I probably shouldn't tell you this because we've got legs out of the IPA, but our pale ale probably isn't even technically pale ale. Holy mother of God. That's outrageous. That is absolutely outrageous. Well, I was going to ask you a question, but I'll ask you when you get back. I can answer his questions. I'm not going to. What's the most challenging aspect of being a brewer in a company that's trying to make a difference in the industry? Not having a brewery. Okay. Where are we? That sounds stupid, but it's literally the biggest difficulty for me is because I don't have...
I've got an avenue of X amount of products and no real variety around it. And the cost of us releasing something else is almost... So we've basically put beers on here through our pilot system and then we've expanded and put some other beers on through contracting. That's almost running at a loss just so that we can introduce people to things. Which is fine, that's kind of what we want to do, but not having a brewery behind us makes my life extremely difficult as a brewer. And it also makes me seem very one-dimensional. Has it been a frustrating...
How long has the venue been open now? Nearly 12 months. Nearly 12 months. December 23. That's insane. So two months. So nearly 12 months. If you went and ate it... This won't be out for a couple of weeks so we can push that closer to almost 12 months. Exactly. Right now it's... I've known you for a year. Right now it's 10 so we can just play on with that. How did that... So what's it been like as a brewer, as a head brewer of Jetty Row Brewery, what's it been like not having a brewery for 10 months?
This is a difficult question to answer because maybe this could be another podcast for a month from now. Because I can make assumptions based on not having a brewery. But it has been extremely difficult because I've had to A) have a tiny pilot system and try and keep something different on at our bar. But not make it so drinkable that I can't get another beer out before that beer is gone. Managing a building project of a brewery that is... I'm not going to say the exact number but expensive. And it deals with government bodies and all the fun stuff that you...
There would have been a lot of red tape right? Extreme amounts. Yeah. And all at the same time trying to maintain a quality craft beer program through contracting where I don't have a hell of a lot of control. And trying to make sure we have a consistent product over probably 9 breweries over the last 5 breweries. Wow, you guys used 9 breweries? In 2 years. 2 years, yeah. So, from Main Grada down to St Andrews. Yeah. Trying to do all that at once has been stressful. And set this place up to be ready to go. Yeah, but enjoyable.
I wouldn't trade what I do now for anything in the world. Yeah, there's days where you don't sleep because there's 11 teen things going through your head at once. It's not a number mate. 11 teen? It's technically a number. Play on. It's a dirty road. Yeah, good back up. What's been your... I'm going to make an IPA called 11 teen. No you're not. And this is how the decision making process works. No, it doesn't work like that, but yeah. What's been your biggest challenge over the last 12 months? Fuck people. Fuck people. That's a clusterfuck of a question, but yeah.
No, no, I don't know. Fuck, Jesus. It's got to be people. It's people, 100% people. Every day of the week. Why? Your numbers don't lie to you, but people are tough. People are tough to manage. All the time. Yeah, why? Especially me. Because they're all different. There's different reasons as to why they do what they do. But I think it's not just that. People are hard to manage, and they all want the best for themselves, but also others. But it's also trying to be a small business, and then also having 38 staff now, and to
have two businesses running at the same time to manage operations, and then the people inside them and the shareholders at the same time is just crazy. That's great. Folks, so from my point of view, looking up Grant, and this is going to sound like you're going to make us kiss again, but to have 38 staff and 14 or whatever people invested, and people, what we were saying before, trying to create a family, but to then try and make one simultaneous direction consistently out of that amount of people is a difficult task, and it's Grant's job. Get a bag.
And every one of those 40, 50 people at some point or other, including me, probably put pressure on Grant and go, "Hang on, man. What about my direction?" And that's a difficult position to be in. But, do your job. He's wearing like $500 shoes, so it clearly works. They are the fanciest shoes I've ever seen. They literally just aren't, but that's fine. On yellow tongue and with the buttons tables. I was not going to miss that opportunity. No, play on. I want to bring that up at the end. I'm just surprised you're wearing a clean shirt, so don't start.
Who said I didn't just piss off a shelf earlier? Because that's an old tea. Anyway, moving on. Yeah, good. Did we do it? No, we're not done yet. We got plenty to go. I love this dynamic because there's... You're not getting the true dynamic because we're trying to behave. Don't behave. I know. If anyone's listened to the last 40 minutes or so... If this goes downhill, it goes downhill. I'm all about it. We get the story. We get how it's worked. How is this relationship going to grow and develop over the next few years? You can grow anything.
I honestly don't think... Because it's very cool to say. Bringing back personality. As Blake said, he can see where I'm struggling. Today, we probably both didn't need to go down and do something at Phillip Island, but it was a good chance to... I saw Blake and do what he's done this week, and I can see him crashing and burning to be able to go, "All right, let's go and grab some food. Let's grab a few beers. Let's chat to a couple of breweries." Because that's exactly how we started. We started by going around and visiting breweries and trying beer and experiencing different things.
But to be able to do that is good. But I don't think... It's hard. Even just sitting at lunch or in the car, or I've never listened to a podcast. It's either business or it's... We're not talking. Not all the time. There's a lot of banter and a lot of shit talk, but it's a lot of business. It's funny. Because we both live and breathe it as well. We haven't been... This is the first time you've asked this question. This is not prerecorded. We've not had that conversation before. I think we both sort of sit there, and that's how much we know each other.
I think we both feel like it's hard to... Are we losing the friendship part of it for the business part of it? Which we're not going to do that. The line get blurred pretty easily. So we try and take... It's never going to be the overwhelming thing. We can't just be best mates all the time and that's it. There's too much very hard to manage. There he is. We still go, "That's enough. We need to just go and be best mates again." Today was a good example of just... There was no... It was business, but it was a day that we just went, "This is not business that we can really do.
"Let's just go and hang out and solve problems, but in our way." Yeah. I'm pinching my drink. They say, "This is friendship." Because any other person in the world... He only took 12% of it though, which is about three... Which is about three times the strength of your IPA. Yeah. It's like... It's pretty good. We don't even have to have a conversation. We're pretty aware of where we sit. So it kind of just naturally gets to the point where we rectify. That's why I say I wouldn't have gone into business with anyone else because we don't have to talk about it.
It's a tough thing to do when you both live and breathe it and are so passionate about it because I think... But it's almost like I don't think you have to be apologetic about talking about work all the time because I think a lot of people have a vision of what work should be and it's, "OK, there's work life and there's life life." It's only if we've got a double date now. Does that happen often? We've had a few and I pretty much think the girls just look at us and go, "Oh, no, fuck it. We'll just..."
It has to be like them going and hanging out and you guys going and hanging out. How do you go... This is an interview question for each of you because it's obviously different for everyone, but how do you go managing everything that you manage day to day and then managing relationships and developing and fostering that because it's something that I'm sure any business owner would agree and anyone that really dives into their work would agree but that's almost the hardest part. I'm going to preface it before Grant talks. Grant also has to do this with Katie, not has to.
They do it together, but that, again, to me... The relationship or the working? But obviously, Katie's part of the business and I can see how that would be a very difficult thing. Yeah, definitely. It would be a tough thing to front up every day if you didn't have that strong connection and ability to have conversations around it all. Yeah, I agree. I think that's just right as well. Yeah, we have some visitors. For me, I've got obviously a relationship with a girl who's serious at uni, so she's got plenty of stress of her own. I've got a lot of stress.
Our whole relationship has been a battle that we're pushing together, not to each other, but just against life. It works for us, not against us. We're kind of each other, keeping pushing forward. It's difficult, but again, that's to me what makes me feel like we're in the right relationship because it's easy then. She puts up with your shit. Yeah, and I know. Go on, goon. Mate, put up with this. Don't say that. Too late. It's way too late for that. You should listen to this, she'll agree. Good for you. It's a cool kind of... I love talking to Sammy from Common Folk about how he and Eliza deal with it all.
You guys are obviously in a similar position, and I feel the same way with KP. You get so much support at home, and it's cool, and it's enjoyable, and you appreciate it so much more when it all works, and when everything's moving forward at once, no matter how hard it is like that. I use the term positive pressure. It's going to be hard, there's going to be times where I just want to go home and go to sleep, and you guys are probably going to be the same. There's going to be times where you're here
all night and you don't necessarily have as much sleep as you want, but that positive pressure is working towards something that's bigger than you as individuals and your partnerships as well. So it's almost like a necessary sacrifice to the vision and the area that you're actually trying to work towards. And it's about all together. It's almost like solidifying. Teammates. Yeah, exactly. I think if you're not in the right relationship, it can be the opposite. It's almost perfect when it is ego, right? We've both got our own different battles, but some days I come home and I'm just burnt out, about to crash, and thank God it's a day where...
She's up and about. She helps me through everything, but then there's days where she's studying and she's about to crash and burn on an essay, and I feel like we actually had this conversation last night or the night before. We literally tell each other the exact same thing. We're going through the same stuff. We're like sounding boards to each other, and it's just a motivation thing that we know exactly where we're both at. And that's what a relationship needs to be. Yeah. And that's obviously what your relationship is, together. Yeah, well they've accepted the fact that there's no relationship on top of being in relationship with us.
Yeah. Yeah. We're the married couple. Yeah, exactly. They're just the flings. And I haven't got, I don't know how much you spend on the engagement ring, but I haven't got it yet. But I've been with it for 30 years. Still isn't it? Oh, genius. I haven't got a fucking ring yet, mate. I've got like a championship ring. Yeah. Just like a big, solid, square championship ring with JRB on it. I feel like when we sell our first million litres of JRB out there, there should be like a championship ring this year. I agree. You're not getting it on total.
That's fine. We get one point out. Per annum's probably a fair way to go. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah? Do I get one too? No chance. Contributed? Yeah, okay. Fair call. I was here at the start of the venue and here at the start of the brew house. I have one question left for both of you. And I'm not sure you can answer it first. Whoever's got the best answer can answer it first. Easy, Blake. What are you most excited for? Oh, this is another one again where each person I think is, because the good thing about our business for me is that it's diverse.
But we also don't try and own other people's areas. So Grant's probably most excited for something completely different to what I'm most excited for. For me, I'm most excited to become a beer brand in Australia. At the moment, we've got an amazing venue. We've got beer in the market. But we haven't really released ourselves as a beer brand in Australia. I'm looking forward to the next 12 months because that's basically our next idea is to become more prominent on a, not just like a national scale, but just within the industry. Craft beer to become a name.
So that's what I'm excited for. But I'm sure Grant's is, you know, similar but different as well. It's probably very selfish. No. Are you going to buy a second pair of 500? I'm definitely buying more. You only have two feet mate. It's so comfortable though. And you need to match it with the belt you're wearing. So you need to always sing about that. Don't look me like that. Anyway, moving on. I think mine shifts. But what I'm excited for I think overall is I think the strategy is coming together which is really exciting. I heard mindfulness.
What's exciting is that the strategy is going well and the growth is a lot bigger than what we expected. And getting the beer and what we are passionate about into the hands of other people, into as many people as possible. Whether they're in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, there's the dream. But what I'm really excited about in my position as well and hopefully I can stay in that position and grow the business. But it's to create an organisation where we get people in that are really passionate about their aspect of the business. Like Blake is. Like the sales guys are and they believe in it and they can grow their own business or their aspect of the business.
And believe in what we're trying to do as well. So joining the journey. So that's what's exciting about me because for us I think any small business it takes a long time. Because not just on me, a fair bit it is, but it's on everybody to create a well-heeled machine and an organisation that's all swimming together. And that takes fucking so much more time than what anybody else understands. And that's exciting for me because that's probably my major job role. And that's really starting to come together now and people are finding their feet and really getting passionate about what they are responsible for.
And what they can drive forward as part of being part of Jenny Road. So that's mine and bringing more people on as we grow. And if I can employ a thousand people that are fucking stoked to be at Jenny Road every day of the week, that's my dream. So that's what I'm excited about, not just about the business. But at the end of the day being the financial person and the business mind and the operational side of things. I've got to focus on that as well and that's exciting as well because that continues to grow. And it's making me learn every day about how we manage it and how we grow intelligently.
I like that. Do I have to ask you a question? Well you can but I've got one more question for you. I know I said it was the last question but I lied. So one of the things you both mentioned before is you don't stop and kind of look back and appreciate how well you've actually done. And that's something that I've been fighting with in terms of my business is actually really enjoying the shit that we've achieved. So my question to finish off with both of you before you ask, probably a stupid question to finish off, is what are you most proud of?
Oh shit. Most proud of or proud of? I don't know. It's not the same thing. Yeah probably. It's Friday at seven. Semantics mate. You go, you get an answer. I have to think. It's such a long move. I love you too so much. Oh I do. No I think it is. I've lost it. It doesn't matter. Moving on. The beer. No. I think. This is cute. This is super cute. It's like we're touching toes in bed. I'm proud of the fact that we've created not just beer, not just a venue, not just a brand. But I think we've created a family that we've kind of wanted to create.
Did you mean to do that? No. Just tell them what you just did. You took a photo. I don't know what you're talking about. You took a selfie. But have a look at what we both did without even looking. She did the same thing. It's disgusting. I'm so off it. I'm out. So yeah. Everyone will say it'll be the podcast image but carry on. I'm proud of the fact that we're well and truly on the way to creating what we wanted to create which is a family of people that came together for ginger ale and are still pushing forward consistently on the same message.
That's what I'm proud of. Mostly. It's got nothing to do with beer. I make beer but I'm also part of the business. To me, the business and the people involved in it is more important than the beer. That's cool. Yeah. I think the common goal thing. I think I said it in my last podcast talk. Yeah. When we were talking about the process and what I think has worked well for us is not wavering from the end goal and I think I don't think I'm intentionally and look and listen to podcasts and try to learn on how to do things and that's probably a downfall.
I'm not learning from other people and I try and do that as much as I can but at the same time, I've got a vision in mind and so does Blake and that vision is the same and that's great but it's also like we started thinking we needed 300,000. We needed 2.5 million and that is a massive, massive hurdle and they're numbers I'm just throwing up in the air and they're not actual numbers but if you said that tomorrow, you've raised 300 grand but you need 2.5. Some people will go, "I'm not doing that. How
the fuck am I going to get that done and who do I need speed to and how do I structure that and of councils having issues or we're fucked up on this and we're going to open the venue instead of the brewery first and we've got a small brewery and we're going to try and run the venue out of this tiny brewery or we're going to do it in Germano which is pretty quiet. There's all these aspects of things that we have gone through but it's not been something where we've gone, we've not sat down and gone, "Are we doing the right thing?"
It's always been the right thing. There's been no substitute on where we're going or what we're doing. It's just been how flexible we need to be to achieve that. So that's what I'm proud of. If anyone ever asked me the question of what would be your number one piece of advice for someone starting a brewery, it would be do not start a brewery unless you fucking love the industry. I like that. Because you're not... Legos for any business, right? No matter what you do, you need to kind of sit. If you look at craft brewing and all that sort of stuff, people would come here and go, "You guys are killing it."
No, not at all. I eat baked beans seven days a week and that is not even taking the piss. Yeah, but how much do you love baked beans? I hate baked beans. I've done it for ten years. Baked beans, porridge, hummus and... What about the jelly story? Do you have any idea how unstable this individual is? When he cut off his thumb and he ate jelly for six weeks? That's another podcast. Yeah, absolutely. It's basically... One hundred percent. Well, you did change the pale ale recipe last minute, right? Yes. Now we're going into... Okay, so
there was a couple of different pale ales that I basically brewed a few different bites and then did a tasting with the dude sitting next to me and some other people and I said, "Which one do you reckon?" They picked one and then the day before I brewed the actual first jelly root, I changed it and went to what we currently have, which is... Pretty good. Well, it seems to be going alright. I enjoy it. Again, had I not changed it, maybe it was better. I don't know. It was basically malt. The hops, everything was the same.
It was the malt flint that I kind of did just to kind of try and give the hops more presence. I don't know what I'm tasting, but I like it, so I think it works. So, probably. And that's the whole point about it. Yeah. Just if you like drinking it, drink it. Yeah. That's the whole part about it. What's cool about it is that you go to the points brewery and their beers are different and they've got a totally different look on how they brew their beers and it's awesome to be able to go 15 minutes down the road and try something different instead of getting the same bullshit CUB crap in every pub.
Fuck 'em. We can leave again on that. That's a good way to finish. And I'm not blowing smoke. I'm not pumping your tires up for the sake of pumping your tires up, but your pails kind of ruined beer for me because every time, like, I'm a footballer, so we drink a lot of draft and things of that nature and having your pail is kind of like, okay, this is, this is something else. We have two people involved in our business that when we first started this, basically drank furfied and that's the draft. First year we took them to Gabs.
They were like, "We're going to get this sour beer and fur," and then took them the second year. Yeah. So our beer was a sour beer and a 100% brittanomyces fermented IPA. You just said all of the words and no one understands. Yeah. But... Sweet English. Keep going. No, I tried beers that I didn't usually try. Everyone... Pail outs in the craft industry is the gateway drug to all other drugs. So once you try a pail out, like, you go from... The draft is the standard beer that everyone has because that's what the market was requiring 10, 20 years ago, right?
Pail out is now that beer that is close enough to be able to try an easy and approachable enough beer to give it a go. And once you give it a go, you go, "I've had something different. I'm going to try something else." And then suddenly you're drinking your IPAs. I'll put money on it. If we did one of these in 12 months time, you'll drink an IPA. We're getting passionate about it. Will there be an actual IPA that's like 6% plus or... Probably not. Probably not. We'll do the standard one, the 5.0. By then I'll have two IPAs with that.
Will one be an actual IPA? Yes. The only reason that we've got a 5.8% IPA and it's lower everywhere is that our beer is supposed to be a transitional thing. So you said you didn't drink pail out 12 months ago. Thank you. No, I definitely did. My idea is in 12 months that person drinks this and in 12 months that person drinks this. So... It's a revolution. Our IPA to me is the next gateway. Every beer that I brew is for a reason. It's 5.8% for a reason. Holy shit. It's lower on hop. One of the things I say is that everything we do in the gym is like we do it for a reason.
That was freaky. So do I get to ask my question? Yeah, I was going to ask you. Any more for any more lads? Yes. What have you got for me? I feel like you and me, I think all three of us have a fairly similar philosophy of things. We do. We create family, create purpose, create everything that is good and the rest kind of takes care of itself. I've only just started frequenting first and probably not enough things. It's been an absolute pleasure, but you've had a busy couple of weeks. The breweries going in have not been there as much as they like, but I feel like you're kind of nailing it.
Thanks mate. You're pandering a bit. Is there a question? Yeah. Continue to like, you know, give me a hug? No, it's unusual. I'm kind of building him up. Good. Knock him down. Knock him the fuck off that chair. We're actually sitting on kegs. What's next? I feel like you're doing it. That's a good question. How do you improve on what I feel like you're doing? Grant's been going for how long? Fuck a year. Nearly a year? Sorry. Yeah. It took a long time. You started about a month after we did the podcast. Yeah. Jan. Yeah. So it would have been end of Jan, probably start of February you started.
What's next? To be honest, I'm at the stage now where I struggled to answer that question more than I ever have. And I, like, our kind of vision is we want to make every individual's world a better place. Every individual who comes into our facility a better place. And like, that sounds a bit wanky, but. It's going to sound, I better say, this is going to sound wanky, but you definitely have done it for me. Go away. Stop it. I haven't been this week, so that's fine. He hasn't, he didn't rock out this week. I haven't kissed Grant and I haven't kissed Lachie.
Yes. So one of the, like, one of the things that I've always kind of said, and I come from, like, I'm a coach, right? Like, I don't come from a business background, so I probably need to spend more time with Grant talking rubbish about numbers and stuff, but, but I kind of always looked at it like, okay, we'll either, we'll go bigger, right? We'll, we'll get another one. We'll get a bigger facility. We'll get a bigger space where we can do more things. Or we'll, maybe we'll go another one, so we'll get a separate space and we'll have two spaces and three spaces and four spaces, whatever.
Vertices. Vertices. Verti. I like that better. And then we'll do that, right? We'll do the same thing as what we've got. But to be honest, right now I feel as though we're going to add the most value and we're going to live truest to our, our values and our meaning by really diving into improving the way we do things at where we are. So I think what's next is just nailing down what our product is, what we are, what we're actually trying to deliver, who we're actually trying to help, how we're actually trying to help them.
And then, and then just adding value to the, this, like it's small in the, in the, in the scale of, you know, the, the industry or the world or whatever, but adding as much value as possible to the people that we see on a, on a weekly basis. I, I think like from your answer just then, and again, that wasn't for us, but like we spoke earlier about all the people that you... It's podcast, mate. Nothing's rehearsed. Stop saying that. The people that you were against earlier on in the fitness industry, the polar opposite of that.
And like that was a question without notice that you answered and answered. You could have said be bigger, do more, do more, and that's exactly what they said. But you've just went, you know what, I want to be better at what we're doing. Yeah. And I, and I think that the longer I spend doing this, the more I kind of go from wanting to be bigger is to more wanting to be better in, in the people that we're serving and the people that we're, we're helping, uh, so that we can make sure that everyone is getting what they, getting what they need.
Um, and yeah, we've been fortunate enough to be able to create a community of people that I see sometimes like I don't have to help a lot of people now because they're helping each other. Yeah, that's your mouse. And it's one of those things that I am able to, something that you guys need to, need to work on a little bit is I'm able to sit back and stop and take a breath and kind of realize how far we've come in the fact that sometimes whether it's another coach or another client, or like another member of the Virtus family, everyone's kind of helping each other.
And it's just, we live in a, you know, 2018 is kind of a weird time where we've got so much connection in terms of social media and, and, and online presence that we, we miss the importance of actual face-to-face contact and improvement. And I think that's the thing that, you know, whether it's Virtus, it's a pub without beer or whether it's common folk, that's, you know, a local business of a hub, like a hub of just activity or whether it's Chetty Road, that's a pub with beer. It's the three. We're trying to make communities for the community.
Well, the thing I realized, I've realized that we're all trying to do the same shit. We're trying to create a community. We're trying to create a group of people and a whole family of people that just want the best for each other. And if we want that, and if we continue to work towards that and continue to drive that, like, I like really, I really like what you said before about size, like size doesn't matter if we continue to live by those values and drive by those values, then everyone's going to win. And if everyone wins, then the world's a better place.
And if the world's a better place, then I'm happy. 100%. It's been an absolute pleasure, lads. Always a pleasure never a chore. Be good. You can't be good at it. Unless it's Tuesday night, then it's a chore. Thank you, sir. I got it in the podcast. Suck a dick, will you? Bye. Bye. Bye.
