Two days with the two brothers behind Two Brothers Brewing (Day 2)

EDITOR’s NOTE: This is just part two of our conversation with Two Brothers Brewing. Part I of the Ebel Dialogs posted yesterday at 12:30 p.m.

Brothers in businesses always make for great stories. Find two obsessive overachievers from the same gene pool, get them focused on building a business, and you have a pretty good recipe for success. Jim and Jason Ebel, the two brothers behind Two Brothers Brewing Co., share that impressive sibling resume, but instead of cars or politics, these brothers are brewing geeks.

Both were ex-pats in Europe who fell in love with bold beer styles and started homebrewing, which led to the brothers opening a beer and wine making store called The Brewer’s Coop in Naperville, Ill., in 1992. Jim went to DePaul University’s College of Law, while Jason went to the Siebel Institute of Technology, earning his diploma in Brewing and Fermentation Sciences. Jason moved to Colorado to brew, but was coaxed back by brother Jim to start Two Brothers. Eighteen years later, Two Brothers produces some of the best craft beer in America through multiple brewpubs, 400 employees and distribution in 10 states (Illinois, Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Iowa and Pennsylvania).

We got the opportunity to meet the Ebel brothers at the recent Craft Brewers Conference in Portland, and like most brothers, the two had plenty of interesting stories to tell. Ensuring a fitting backdrop, we met the brothers under the golden pendulum of the Oregon Convention Center. I grabbed a table (with CBB marketing guru Pete McNeil), and we stretched out our legs. In typical CBB fashion, I had no questions prepared. Luckily, the Ebel brothers were just naturally entertaining. I threw a few questions their way, and this excellent interview became the result.

CBB: Can you tell us about the evolution of the beer lately. What cool new techniques are you using over at Two Brothers? Are their certain ingredients, brands or styles that you’re getting geeked about these days?

Jason: In October, we released another IPA. It’s called the Wobble, and it’s going gangbusters for us. It’s all late edition hops. As a matter of fact, it’s the only beer we don’t hop until there’s 25 minutes left in the boil. No hops at all till that 25-minutes-left-in-the-boil mark. That was new for us to try, and there are loads of hops in there, but it’s a great beer and as I mentioned it’s going gangbusters for us. It’s become our No. 2 seller already.

CBB: What’s your No. 1?

Jason: Our Domaine DuPage French Country Ale. That’s the big dog.

Jim: It has been for 15 years at least. It has a lot of legs.

CBB: You guys have a cool history. You started off as a homebrew supply company, is that right? Do you still do that?

Jason: Very good. Yep, in 1993. We still do it a little bit. We have a store up in the front of the brewery. We’re still in that realm. Big brew day is coming up here next month — National Homebrewers Day — and we actually invite the local homebrew clubs in the area to come out, and we brew wort for them on our big system and they take however much they want — 5, 10, 15 gallons — and they make a batch there in the brewery with their equipment. Last year, we gave away 10 barrels of wort that they turned into beer. You see kettles going throughout the brewery.

Jim: You seem’em out there with their propane burners and hops. It’s pretty cool.

CBB: The Two Brothers movement is growing. Where does Two Brothers distribute now? How many states are you in?

Jason: We’re in 10 states, so Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri — those all kind of make sense because they’re close together — then it goes Pennsylvanian and New York — which don’t make any sense. Then Florida and now Arizona. We actually opened our own wholesaling company in Arizona. About six months ago, we opened Arizona Beer and Cider Co. We distribute not only our stuff, but other people’s stuff as well.

CBB: There’s no legality in that situation that makes distributing your own beer weird?

Jason: We’re allowed to do that as an out-of-state brewery.

CBB: Ah, well, you guys are insanely busy. How many employees do you have now?

Jim: Nearly 400. It’s a lot of management, and a lot of people rely on us. We’re very honored to be able to support those people and their families. It’s really something important for us to make sure we’re treating our employees well and giving them good benefits.

Jason: It’s pretty gratifying at the end of the day when you sit down to open a beer, lean back and think: There are 400 families that rely on a paycheck every day, and it all stems from what’s in my hand. That’s pretty neat.

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CBB: That’s pretty awesome. Changing gears a little to the business side of brewing. Since you’re new into the distribution game, what advice would you give to a new craft brewer who’s learning how and where to sell his or her craft beer?

Jim: That’s a loaded question.

Jason: No kidding.

Jim: Obviously, quality is super important. Everybody says their quality is the best and that quality is the most important thing, but you know, a lot of breweries right now, just because it’s exploding out there, don’t have the proper tools to really ensure quality. They don’t have the labs. They don’t have technicians on staff to help them. This is maybe getting off topic a little bit, but it’s one of my major fears. In 1997 when we started, every brewery in Illinois except for Goose Island closed. There weren’t many. There were breweries like Chicago Brewing Co. and Golden Prairie. It wasn’t necessarily those beers, but the market in general had these people getting into it that just didn’t know what they were doing. It was a proliferation of beers that were not very good. That’s a concern I have right now in the industry. It’s quality. People go out and have bad experiences with craft beer, and they might generalize the segment as a whole. That’s something I think every craft brewery needs to be conscientious of.

CBB: Jason, what do you think? It doesn’t have to be about distribution, but is there any advice you can part with for up-and-coming craft brewers?

Jason: If you want to make a million dollars, start with two. And then on the flip side of that, don’t over-anticipate your growth pattern. Just because the industry is growing rapidly, you still have to have realistic goals set. We talk to a lot of people with unrealistic goals. They haven’t even opened their doors yet, and they’re going to blow the industry up like they’re Sierra Nevada or something. You can get there, if that’s your goal, but have realistic expectations from the start. Don’t overbuild your capacity, or you could easily run out of capital — unless you’re well-funded. And always remember that your wholesaler is your partner. He’s not the enemy. You’ve got to work together. I see too much of that, right? We wear both hats, so we’re big believers in the partnership of it, and I feel that’s been a big reason for our success over the last 18 years has been to have a partnership-style relationship with our wholesalers.

CBB: That’s what we love about it. It’s a relationship business. Have you guys been out on the trade show floor making any new relationships? Seen anything cool?

Jason: This year, we’re actually not shopping, which is strange. We just put in the can line, and we’re like, “Ok, there’s a moratorium on buying anything.” We’ve got 10 guys here, and they’re all like, “Whoa-HO-HO, it’s Christmas!” And we’re like, “Nope! No buying. It’s just window shopping this year.”

Jim: I feel there are a lot of technical things coming into our scale and size or brewery — things that exclusively used to be only for the big three. Those systems are being downsized appropriately, so they are affordable and easy to use for the medium-sized craft brewer like us. That’s pretty interesting to see the technologies available to us now.

Jason: That’s a very good point. Some of that stuff used to be hard for us to find. The big players are looking at this industry like they should. There are 11,000 people here for a reason. There are definitely some neat toys coming.

CBB: Is there anything locally — in Illinois — that you’re focused on legislatively? Are there any laws you’re looking to change in your state or federally?

Jim: Very much so. The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild has gotten pretty big and sophisticated. We’re about 80 members now, and there’s 95-ish breweries there in Illinois. We’ve got a very devoted board of directors, and we’ve also got a legislation committee now. We have a part-time lobbyist in Springfield, so we’ve been really working on some of the restrictions that have been put in place as far as cross-ownership in particular with brewpubs and manufacturers [read: brewers].

We’ve come to terms I think with every interested party on some legislation that I think will pass this spring that will allow manufacturers to own up to three brewpubs in the same state. There’s a three tier issue because a brewer’s a manufacturer, and a brewpub in Illinois is considered a specialty retailer, so you’re crossing that tier line, but there making an exception for us now, and everyone’s excited about it. There’s a lot more growth opportunities, especially from the micro-side where you want to get a tasting room or something in addition. We’ve worked hard on it, so we’re pretty happy that it looks like it’s going to go right through.

CBB: Congrats, man. What’s next for Two Brothers? Anything on the horizon you’d like to mention? I mean really, do you guys need any more work to do?

Jason: I think we have our hands full at the moment. Eight weeks into a restaurant in Arizona and six months in as a wholesaler. It’s keeping us busy. We have ideas, but no set plans yet.

CBB: Is all of this still fun for you guys? It sounds like a lot of work.

Jason: Yeah, we’re still having fun. If you can’t tell by the smile on my face, we’re definitely still having fun.

Be sure to read Part I of the Ebel Dialogs, which posted yesterday at 12:30 p.m.