Revolutionary Beer in Morristown
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forever
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what's up everybody welcome back to
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another episode of greetings from the
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garden state we are here in my hometown
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again morristown new jersey at glenbrook
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brewery a place that i probably spend
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way too much time at uh with heath
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traver and darren kregan uh guys welcome
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to the show
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thanks for having us thanks absolutely
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absolutely so uh you guys haven't been
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open i think we were talking before for
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the last eight months right at the time
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of this recording so it's november 15th
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today when we're recording
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this episode like i mentioned to you
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guys before he's gonna post in january
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so you've been open for eight or nine
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months so what's that experience been
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like
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being a new business in town yeah it's
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been kind of crazy we opened
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the door
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soft opening february 21st
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[Music]
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just to our contractor that helped build
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it out you know training the staff
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getting
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everything working correctly and dialed
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in and
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you know it was a one weekend later we
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opened up to the public nice yeah yeah i
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can't believe how uh
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it's actually been eight months or so
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and it's just flown by yeah just going
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as fast as we can trying to keep up
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you know both having other jobs in
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addition to this i recently made the
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move to full time here but darren's
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still
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you know doing both so it's been just uh
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kind of
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pretty hectic but a lot of fun right
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yeah well i know like in my walks during
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the pandemic because that was like the
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only thing you could do to actually like
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get any type of exercise i kept walking
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by here and i'm like man when is that
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place gonna open because it's like
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literally right down the street from my
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home you know so i was just like oh i
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can't wait for those guys to get open
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and then i finally saw it back like you
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said in february and was very excited so
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you said that uh you both were working
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full-time jobs or you which maybe still
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are working a full-time job on top of
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this yeah um so
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brewer was not the job that you had
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right out of high school or college so
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what like what got what were you doing
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before this and then how did you find
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the
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passion to start brewing your own beer
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all right so i was in the irrigation
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industry
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as an irrigation designer
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working for the manufacturer as a
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specification manager it was my uh my
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actual role
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but i i started home brewing about 10
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years ago actually our brother-in-law
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skip got me a uh he was my secret santa
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okay he got me a little one gallon kit
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for
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for christmas
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and i you know got into it and i just
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loved it you know started making
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started making beers creating recipes
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sharing with the family
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and just and having fun and i i got i
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really got into it you know i i found
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myself uh
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you know calling
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you know the place where we got the
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original kit from and ordering bigger
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stuff more stuff i wanted to just keep
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going with it
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and the beer started coming up pretty
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good you know i think my favorite part
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was bringing it around and just sharing
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it with family and friends and uh and
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yeah yeah that was always fun sharing
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the recipes trying to pick which one
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we all like the best and kind of taking
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it from there
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yes at 20 so
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2012 heath came to me with the idea
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saying hey you know it'd be my dream to
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open up a brewery and i kind of got the
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wheels going my day job i'm a creative
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director and a vitamin supplement
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company and
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been in our art direction my whole
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career
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making
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tv commercials for big big companies so
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my creative juices started flowing and
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we came up with the idea and he said
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what do you want to call it and uh he's
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living on glenbrook road and he just
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kind of went with that he said
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brooke brewery let's just run with that
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there you go and that's it yeah it's
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actually the the home that our wives are
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our sisters and they grew up in the in
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that house on glenbrook gotcha on
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glenbrook road yeah since it's a family
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business we thought it'd be a nice nod
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to the family to name it after yeah very
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cool so
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here's a question so if you're brewing
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these beers and you're giving it to your
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family do you think that that's going to
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be like a
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uh
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maybe like the audience that's going to
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give you the most critical review or do
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you think that maybe they're going to
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try to blow smoke so was it hard to
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figure out which ones were actually good
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that's a really that's a good question
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because because you don't know if you're
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going to get on on his feedback like oh
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yeah heath it's great man it's great i
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was just happy that it didn't suck i was
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just happy they weren't spitting it out
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to the ground
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yeah didn't make anybody sick yeah well
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that's a win yeah and uh actually and
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then we uh we developed the pumpkin ale
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uh we put together uh you know five
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different pumpkin recipes and then we
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tried them together and decided okay
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this is this is the one and we submitted
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it
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to the morristown mash which is a local
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homebrew competition in morristown and
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uh it actually won uh second yeah
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second place it went silver so uh then
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it was like wait a minute maybe maybe
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there's something here yeah maybe maybe
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the beer is actually good and uh you
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know not you know beyond just what we
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think might be a good b right yeah so so
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yeah so that kind of uh gave us you know
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created some momentum for us yeah right
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right and that so that silver medal was
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in 2015 wow right so it's been a long
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road three years after and started home
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brewing
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uh
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yeah taking it to families and friends
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and you know family parties christenings
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whip out a bunch of cases and yeah get
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honest feedback from not only our family
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but our friends of course yeah yeah yeah
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some of them were are more honest
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but you need those people right you need
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those people i think that that criticism
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is way more valuable than somebody just
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saying they like the beer yeah right
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exactly because if you're going to build
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your whole business on the fact that
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people are blowing smoke up your butt
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that's not necessarily the best business
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plan is not not a business owner but i
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would imagine that's not but i will say
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the pumpkin beer is my favorite and it's
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like not even close like when i come
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down here it's like that's the one that
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i get you know it's either that
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sometimes if i it's like getting a
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little too heavy after maybe like five
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six seven eight nine maybe we'll go
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kulsh a little bit with the kosh but
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no i think the stuff here is tremendous
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so um talk to me about like all these
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different
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things like so in the in the youtube
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version of this show people could see in
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the background these are like you're
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serving
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pots yes serving
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tank uh when we actually serve directly
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out of these so these pour directly to
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the taps so they're classified as
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serving tanks as well
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um behind me those are fermentation
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vessels okay um that is where the beer
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is going to sit and ferment where the
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yeast is going to be taking the sugars
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that are existing in the wart and over
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time converting it into the sugars into
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alcohol so that's where that's where it
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spends most of its time about a week or
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so yeah so tell me so
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what's it like going from you know home
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brew i've never done a home brew but i
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would imagine like the kit is relatively
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small and the stuff that's in here is
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not small
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so is it like was it difficult to make
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the transition from doing like the
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homebrew stuff to something on this
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scale because i would imagine you can't
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just like rent one of these things and
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like do it in your backyard or your
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basement or your garage or whatever you
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know i mean so was it like difficult to
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try to like scale and then figure it out
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or is it basically like the the base is
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the same and then it's just kind of like
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increasing volume i guess well i i think
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the the best way to put it would be to
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classify it as as being terrifying
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perfect i love that yeah can did love it
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yeah so uh but yeah you know in the
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kitchen brewing at five gallons at a
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time here brewing 500.
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so it was scary you know scaling up and
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thinking okay
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if if if we're no good at this we could
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ruin our families and our futures
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that's scary yeah
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yeah um but uh but you know
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i had faith in you thanks man yeah
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that's fantastic yeah so but yeah you
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know so scaling up you know really the
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recipes
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are fairly scalable with with some
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exceptions um
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but we scaled up the recipes and we
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actually we did for the first two brews
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or the first two brewers we actually
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brought in an outside consultant okay
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scott morrison um so which which gave us
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kind of a safety net so okay he's going
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to show us like we know how to brew yeah
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but we don't know you know that
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equipment there's all these pumps and
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pneumatic valves and hand valves you've
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got a forklift in here you've got all
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sorts of stuff in here it's crazy yeah
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yeah so we actually brought in a
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consultant for just for the first couple
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just to make sure we weren't screwing it
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up too bad right yeah which kind of gave
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us a
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a safety net or a comfort level and then
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uh went through with him and and brewed
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some of the recipes that i had developed
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over the years and we grew
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all together and just uh paid attention
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and uh made sure that we had a
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repeatable process right so we could you
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know make sure that we you know nail it
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the same every time make sure that
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everything's clean because that's the
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most important
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well that's pretty critical part is to
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make sure everything's clean so that you
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don't in factor
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any future batches yeah so uh once we
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had processes down
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um we knew how to do it and we've been
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doing it and trying to improve those
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processes over time so so you know i
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don't know how many brews we've done so
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far but every time we've learned
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something and you know you learn that or
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make a mistake and you apply that to the
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future
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you know any tips yeah yeah just tricks
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yeah yeah just getting trying to get
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better at it because you know in the end
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we you know even though things are going
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really well we want to keep making sure
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we make make sure that we keep improving
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our process and getting better right in
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the end if we just keep improving and
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getting better uh you know hopefully
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we'll be successful yeah so what um how
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many
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beers at a time can you uh
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like brew
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with this setup that you have in here is
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it like you could do like
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like one at a time and then fill up one
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of these tanks and then start again or
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are there multiple going on at one time
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right so so one brew day is one beer so
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you make 500 gallons it takes a full day
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it's a full 10 hour day
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um
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500 gallons 500 gallons okay and then
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once we're finished in the brew house
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over there where we're brewing it
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and we move it over to fermenters and
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add the yeast and that's where it's
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going to sit like i said for a week or
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so sure
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so
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we have five of those and um
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then after it's done in the fermenter
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transfer to a bright tank where it gets
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uh
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uh carbonated right forced carbon it was
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co2
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so really uh now that we have 12 things
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on tap it's a balancing act of what we
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have
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in the serving tanks what we have back
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there and what we have in the walk-in
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cooler and kegs that we're actually
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pouring out of it as well yeah so it's
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kind of a paying attention to all that
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and and trying to plan into the future
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and understanding where
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you know
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okay where is this one going to go okay
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should we can this variety off so we
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have room for the next beer what's next
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yeah so yeah yeah yeah i thought it was
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cool the one one time
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this was i think it was the culch i'm
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not sure but i'm pretty sure we were
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sitting in here and one of the things
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that i do like is that like you're like
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always here so you're very visible so
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like obviously like the product is there
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and you made it so then you could like
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ask questions and all that kind of stuff
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and you i forget what we were drinking
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and you came over just like hey you guys
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want to try this culture it's not
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carbonated yet but it's like almost
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ready and we were like yeah and then we
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got like a little sample of it which i
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thought was fantastic and it was it was
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good and then it got carbonated and it
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became even better so um so yeah so i i
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think that's fantastic so what we're
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going to do is we're going to take our
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first break
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and then we're going to get in our
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second segment we're going to get more
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into like the offerings and future beers
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and future plans and all that kind of
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stuff then the community segment in the
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last segment so this is the greetings
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from the garden state podcast i'm mike
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hamm we're here at the glen brook
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brewery in morristown new jersey with
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heath traver and darren kreigen we'll be
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right back
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today in new jersey history is sponsored
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by paypro but paypro will help your
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organization with its human capital
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management and employee benefits so you
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can scale and grow to learn more head to
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payprocorp.com on january 24th 1935
11:52
newark based brewery gottfried krueger
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brewing company became the first to
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produce its beer kruger beer in cairns
11:59
the brewery was founded in 1858 by
12:01
gottfried kruger and his uncle john
12:03
libel and that is today in new jersey
12:05
history
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all right we're back this is the
12:12
greetings from the garden state podcast
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i'm mike hammer here at glenbrook
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brewery in morristown new jersey with
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heath traver and darren kregan so guys
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in the first segment we've talked a lot
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about the background we did got like a
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little quick quick and dirty lesson on
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how stuff is brewed
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and kind of what the process is so you
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mentioned the first
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beer that you brewed that kind of like
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catapulted this whole thing was the
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pumpkin
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beer which is personally my favorite
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so then but we were talking also about
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how like the that one was brewed when so
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you've been at brewery for how long
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2015 2015 so 2015. it's also 2021. so
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like that's a six-year period so talk to
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me about maybe the process of like when
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this first bug gets in your guy's brain
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to start a brewery like what that
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process was like and and going from like
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working full-time jobs and also trying
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to put together like another business
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where you're gonna have to be very
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hands-on you know like you're brewing
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stuff you're here you're interacting
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with customers all that kind of stuff so
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talk to me about that process yeah so
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2015 kind of we were working on a
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business plan you know
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uh pitching family
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the first the first getting that award
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that silver medal was kind of like you
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know a big feather in the cap
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gave us just more ammo you know more
13:27
confidence to go sit down and talk to
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people we started talking with um
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bank of america first was our first
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thing our first bank we talked to and
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then we switched gears we wanted to keep
13:35
it super local so we decided to um
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pursue ppac gladstone bank and
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and they became on board
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and uh yeah we pitched the business plan
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we started looking at commercial uh
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commercial areas this isn't our first
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location our first choice was um
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down on abbott avenue my best friend
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ryan plumbing
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uh kevin ryan his was going to
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consolidate part of his shop for us and
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and we were going to just set up there
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and become a production facility it was
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kind of the the
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plan
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and um after sitting down with the mayor
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and and and and that location not
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working out it kind of this is where the
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town wanted us and this is where the
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bank really wanted us and
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so we weren't planning on having this
14:18
whole big tasting room so we had to
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shift gears and change plans and
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and then we had to come up with
14:25
you know plans for bigger equipment so
14:27
we could you know
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produce enough beer to
14:30
supply to town with
14:32
kegs yeah basically right it wasn't as
14:34
easy because we had pretty much had to
14:36
start from scratch you know all the
14:37
architectural drawings the plant sets
14:39
yeah guards right outside of scratch
14:41
yeah so it costs us a lot more money um
14:44
but but i think in the end this
14:46
location's you know it's a great
14:47
location
14:48
and we also started um trademarking all
14:51
of our names
14:52
uh that first initial filing when we got
14:54
our state um
14:56
uh license and um
14:59
filed with we registered with the state
15:00
we got our our was the beverage beverage
15:03
license from the federal government we
15:06
trademark our names one of the first
15:07
ones we trademarked was revolutionary
15:09
beer and that was an easy uh revolution
15:12
brewing came after us uh when it was
15:14
published
15:16
and uh tried to help us
15:18
you know withdraw our application well
15:20
that didn't sit too well with me i lost
15:21
a lot of sleep over that one yeah right
15:23
we had to find an intellectual property
15:25
attorney
15:26
to help us uh you know straighten out
15:28
that mess which took over a year and
15:31
and yeah so we slowly just started
15:33
trademarking all of our names around uh
15:35
historical parts of town here yeah no i
15:37
love that and that's that's one of the
15:39
things that i do like about this place
15:41
one of the things is that like all the
15:43
names of the beers have like some tie-in
15:46
back to
15:47
like the community which i think is you
15:48
know we're going to get to more
15:49
community stuff as we get longer into
15:51
this episode um but let's let's talk
15:53
about like the beers so the first one we
15:56
talked about the pumpkin beer so the
15:58
first one that you filled one of these
15:59
bright tanks with because you knew it's
16:01
going to be a staple of glenbrook is
16:03
what beer
16:04
so the first one was colonial ale you
16:07
know we wanted to make a standard
16:08
american ale you know everybody's out
16:10
there making these crazy high
16:12
you know high gravity you know big big
16:15
beers but we understand that you know if
16:17
you come if you have one of those you're
16:18
probably going to have one maybe two
16:20
yeah colonial we want to be our
16:22
cornerstone beer you know come sit down
16:24
you have multiple
16:25
enjoy yourself hang out yeah nothing
16:27
crazy not too high in the alcohol five
16:30
percent range was really something
16:32
because
16:33
you know
16:34
sitting down watching the football game
16:36
or something like that you can't you're
16:37
not going to drink a 12 beer and then
16:39
last right yeah you might last a quarter
16:41
watching a football game that was
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definitely we we talked long and hard
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about about that and and
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and uh making sure that you know they're
16:49
all drinkable
16:51
yeah and the interesting thing was that
16:52
so when we started to to consider
16:54
getting into distribution which we knew
16:56
was direction we were going to head in
16:57
eventually we started having the
16:58
different owners of the different places
17:00
around town the different uh
17:02
restaurant owners or managers or those
17:05
in charge of beer procurement coming in
17:07
to do tastings and they seem to
17:09
gravitate towards the morristown ipa
17:11
which is which is a uh we call it our
17:13
morristown style ipa because there's new
17:15
england ipa there's west coast east
17:17
coast yeah one of the moore's town south
17:18
ipa that we could be proud of you know
17:20
uh yeah
17:21
so uh we built this ipa a big juicy hazy
17:25
you know juice bomb
17:27
yeah man
17:28
and everybody loves it so that's
17:30
actually seems to be the most popular
17:32
one for you know being on tap around
17:34
town is either the morristown or maybe
17:36
one of the seasonals like yeah people
17:37
like the oktoberfest yeah so that's
17:39
awesome oktoberfest is also good yeah i
17:41
like that one too and yeah but we do
17:43
have the colonial out there as well um
17:46
so but and i'm going to just give heath
17:48
a little nod because just recently in
17:50
october 21st
17:52
uh we won nine brewing awards in our
17:54
first brewing competition that's not bad
17:56
yeah so
17:58
nine for nine um it was a hundred
18:01
hundred international competition called
18:02
the brewski awards
18:04
um
18:05
and it was over a hundred breweries
18:06
participated in over 450
18:10
beers thousands of beers and and
18:13
we walked away with uh a platinum for
18:16
the kosh uh morristown ipa was a gold
18:19
a porter got a silver
18:21
and so did our lewis morris exploration
18:23
ale nice got it another silver and then
18:26
five promises so
18:28
uh not too shabby at all for our first
18:31
brewery competition yeah yeah yeah
18:32
absolutely it's nice to get to have some
18:34
like validation like right we think the
18:36
beer is good but you know that what does
18:38
that mean exactly so so they have some
18:40
some validation from others in the
18:41
industry was was very it was very nice
18:43
and yeah yeah well that's one of the
18:46
things also um going back to like you
18:48
know uh getting it around town that's
18:50
like one of the things that i like too
18:51
so i go to a just as a you know side bar
18:54
like i go to the hops in morristown
18:56
behind the frog there um every couple
18:58
weeks for a networking group that i'm a
19:00
part of and then i started seeing glenn
19:01
brooke on the board and i'm like oh i'll
19:03
have a gumber you know or whatever i
19:05
think that was the morristown one there
19:07
and then even going over here to the
19:08
four seasons liquor store like you know
19:10
i started seeing that the four packs and
19:12
the in there and all that kind of stuff
19:13
so um do you so this is i don't know why
19:16
i'm this question just popped into my
19:17
head but as i'm talking about that do
19:18
you think that you know if you were in
19:21
your original location that i think that
19:23
you guys were trying to get into as just
19:24
maybe a distribution spot
19:26
not having a tasting room
19:28
uh would have hindered maybe the ability
19:31
to kind of get out into the community
19:33
because now people come down here they
19:35
can sit down here they can have a beer
19:36
they can meet you guys and all that kind
19:38
of stuff and everybody that i've ever
19:39
interacted with here that's part of your
19:41
staff like connor and everybody else are
19:43
just
19:44
off the charts tremendous that's the
19:45
best and the best and like you know i
19:48
think that that's something that i think
19:50
adds in to the um popularity of glenn
19:54
brooke and all the stuff that you guys
19:55
are doing so do you think that that has
19:56
been an important part of the trip of
19:58
the lifespan of the business
20:00
yeah oh yeah 100 i mean we got lucky
20:02
with with connor and and our staff um
20:08
yeah the the the early business model
20:10
was just to get kegs out the door and
20:13
and and just become a production
20:15
facility but like
20:17
you know
20:18
you know when people come in and
20:19
families come in you know we really
20:21
enjoy seeing everybody have a have a
20:24
good time right that play the board
20:26
games stay for hours
20:28
um you know moms pack
20:31
tons of food for the kids or they order
20:33
in a pizza from
20:35
one of the local
20:36
local pizzerias and i mean that that
20:38
just i get a lot of get a lot of joy out
20:41
of watching people enjoy themselves yeah
20:44
yeah absolutely
20:45
yeah yeah it's been it's been
20:47
interesting that the the trans you know
20:49
kind of transitioning to this space it
20:50
kind of changed the whole business model
20:52
sure you were saying you know uh but but
20:55
being here you know having the tasting
20:57
room and making it a family-friendly
20:58
environment because we both have you
21:00
know families with young young kids and
21:02
and uh so we have you know a
21:03
non-alcoholic birch beer on tap that we
21:05
that we brewed and like darren saying
21:07
the games and there's on weekends
21:10
strollers everywhere here families
21:12
having a great time so
21:14
yeah that's excellent yeah i'll just uh
21:16
echo what darren was saying about the
21:18
team that we have here and just
21:21
the overall you know just having them
21:22
enhance the experience they're they're
21:24
they're the best yeah so yeah thank
21:26
goodness for that oh of course yeah and
21:27
that's that's hard to come by yeah and
21:30
gabby yep
21:32
right we don't want to leave anybody
21:33
else
21:37
so and then also from the awards side
21:40
like you know
21:41
is it easy to kind of maybe hang your
21:43
hat on the fact that you have some
21:46
great beers here or does that kind of
21:48
maybe excite you to try new things to
21:51
maybe win different awards and maybe
21:53
what are some things that when this
21:54
episode posts in january like maybe what
21:57
are some offerings that maybe that
21:58
people can expect when they come down
22:00
here okay so yeah we're uh so yeah very
22:03
excited about the awards and it kind of
22:04
gives us a little bit of validation and
22:06
and you know
22:07
and some hardware on the wall exactly
22:10
yeah right less less insecurity about
22:12
the end product
22:15
but but yeah so we're planning a couple
22:16
things you know coming down down the
22:19
pike uh we we're we're doing a uh we're
22:21
gonna do a christmas sale at christmas
22:22
spice dale which is gonna be nice we're
22:24
gonna name that i think we're going to
22:25
name that after thomas nast who uh you
22:28
know morristown uh lived up on
22:30
mccullough
22:32
developed the uh what we consider is the
22:35
modern image of santa claus so i thought
22:37
that'd be a fun
22:38
fun nod to morristown and and uh one of
22:40
his most famous residents and then we're
22:42
going to do we want to do a winter wheat
22:45
beer as well that we're going to launch
22:47
over the winter so uh so those you know
22:49
once this podcast posts that those both
22:52
should be available hoping the christmas
22:53
is still
22:54
still available right so one of the
22:56
other things we did was um we invested
22:58
we invest we invested in a pilot system
23:01
so
23:02
all the beers that pretty much that we
23:04
have on tap now heath's made
23:06
in the kitchen in his kitchen his garage
23:09
you know
23:10
um over the years so we we're fairly
23:13
comfortable with those but the um the
23:15
one-barrel system is more of a pilot
23:17
system it's more of an experimental
23:19
kitchen sure kind of thing so we'll make
23:21
it a one barrel at a time versus 15
23:25
barrel system
23:26
so um you know and we have a lot of
23:28
young
23:30
team members that are enthusiastic about
23:32
home brewing too so we're going to give
23:34
them the wheel and let them try some
23:36
stuff and then we'll have limited
23:37
releases yeah that's all of these
23:39
special
23:40
beers
23:41
and um
23:42
oh and then the porter silver medal
23:45
winner we're going to get some barrels
23:47
and barrel age that oh cool some here's
23:50
some uh we ordered some bourbon barrels
23:53
yeah
23:53
knob creek and basil hayden actually uh
23:56
we got two barrels from each which are
23:58
about
23:59
53 53 gallons barrels each for them yeah
24:03
we're gonna start aging the quarter in
24:05
those and then releasing them at
24:07
certain time points like three months
24:09
six months one year yeah just seeing
24:11
what seeing what happens he's having fun
24:13
with it as a knob creek and a basal
24:15
hayden drinker and a glenbrook drinker
24:17
i'm excited about that so yeah um so i
24:20
mean that those are maybe some of the
24:22
the future plans for the the actual
24:24
offerings here but maybe even looking
24:27
down the road even further i know you
24:28
guys have only been open for eight or
24:29
nine months here in this in this spot do
24:32
you have visions of you know we talk
24:34
about like the offerings but visions of
24:35
maybe the extent that you want the
24:37
business to be at you know is it going
24:38
to maybe stay here in this location do
24:40
you would you ever like think of going
24:42
to a bigger spot all that kind of stuff
24:44
you have plans to expand here with our
24:46
landlord there's a metal space here that
24:49
eventually when he retires we will you
24:51
know hopefully
24:53
expand into that space a little bit
24:56
um
24:57
our celts are one we didn't talk about
24:59
the seltzer but uh our seltzer we've
25:01
made three flavors so far we've started
25:04
off with a mango flavor then we had a
25:05
kiwi strawberry currently we have a
25:07
blackberry
25:08
um
25:09
seltzer on on tap and and we want to get
25:12
ready to can some of those for the
25:14
summer we have other flavors we want to
25:15
try yeah so that we can see it on a golf
25:18
course or
25:19
you know out when you're out at the lake
25:21
or whatever
25:22
um
25:23
yeah when you talk about expansion like
25:25
we've ordered like the tanks we have the
25:26
fermenters are 500 gallon fermenters we
25:29
just ordered two more that are actually
25:31
thousand gallons so twice the size of
25:33
these okay just to to make sure we have
25:35
enough
25:36
in the tanks for distribution so you
25:38
know once we get out and we're on tap
25:40
somewhere we need to make sure that we
25:41
don't run out yeah we can make sure that
25:43
the the establishment has what what they
25:46
need right so so we're expanding
25:48
internally as much as we can but i i
25:50
could see down the road we need to
25:52
possibly open another production
25:53
facility if things go really well yeah
25:55
um right now i think we're so busy i
25:57
don't know
25:58
yeah yeah yeah
26:00
coming up for air exactly exactly well i
26:02
love that yeah and i'm and i'm excited
26:04
about all of the the new offerings and
26:06
maybe the future plans and all that kind
26:08
of stuff so what we're gonna do is we're
26:09
gonna take our second break our last
26:10
break of this episode uh so this is the
26:12
green sweet garden state podcast i'm
26:14
mike campbell here at glenbrook brewery
26:15
in morristown new jersey with keith
26:17
traver and darren kregan we'll be right
26:19
back
26:22
it is time for new jersey fun fact of
26:24
the day did you know the lambert castle
26:26
museum in patterson has a spoon exhibit
26:28
with over 5 400 spoons from every state
26:31
and almost every country in the world
26:33
and that is your new jersey fun fact of
26:35
the day
26:38
all right we're back for our last
26:39
segment of this episode of greetings
26:41
from the garden state uh i'm mike ham
26:42
we're here at glenbrook brewery in
26:44
morristown new jersey with heath traver
26:45
and darren kregan so we've gone through
26:47
the
26:48
background of the business we've gone
26:49
through your guys background we've gone
26:51
through the offerings that you guys have
26:52
we've gone through maybe future
26:54
offerings that people can come to expect
26:55
from here we talked about a lot of stuff
26:57
over the course of this episode so what
26:59
we normally like to do for the last
27:00
segment is go in and talk about the
27:02
community side because this is a new
27:04
jersey focus podcast so all the stuff
27:06
that you guys do with the community and
27:08
all that um and i know there's a lot
27:10
that we need to get to but one of the
27:11
things that i think is cool is that you
27:13
know when you have a place like this
27:14
especially like a local business i feel
27:16
like one of the really
27:18
powerful things is having like a loyal
27:20
community so people that come in people
27:22
that come in here to buy four packs to
27:25
sit and drink with their families on the
27:26
weekends like we were talking about so
27:28
talk to me about
27:29
how important that was from from the
27:31
get-go to make sure that you establish
27:34
yourself with a good relationship with
27:35
the community and that way you make sure
27:37
that you have people coming back as a
27:39
relatively new business in the area
27:42
yeah
27:43
[Music]
27:45
so
27:46
i
27:47
one of our first
27:48
people we reached out to was the
27:49
morrison high school to support the kids
27:51
there
27:53
we talked to the art teacher and the
27:55
shop teacher about giving them projects
27:57
painting a mural
27:59
you know maybe making some flight
28:00
handles letting them be creative
28:03
um
28:04
and you know we supply all the all the
28:06
materials that they would need to to be
28:08
creative that's cool so that was one of
28:10
the first meetings we had and then
28:12
um that was last spring during you know
28:15
kobe they were all being homeschooled
28:17
now that they're back in school one of
28:19
the first things we did was we sponsored
28:21
the football boosters club program
28:24
uh bought ad space in there for the home
28:26
games
28:28
um just recently uh we did the theater
28:31
department we sponsored right uh yeah
28:33
harvey they have harvey coming up uh
28:35
okay they're they're their play musical
28:38
so we sponsored them
28:41
um
28:42
and then we're recently uh we just had a
28:44
meeting we're going to get involved with
28:45
the the morris moore's educational
28:48
foundation uh they do a big show at the
28:51
the mpac
28:52
uh an audition kind of thing i think
28:55
it's like you know america's got talent
28:56
kind of production that's cool and then
28:58
um
28:59
uh sponsor uh the show which will be in
29:02
february
29:03
a live show of of local residents
29:07
doing their thing singing and dancing
29:09
yeah they're great the education
29:10
foundation um i remember they do a lot
29:13
uh as far as supporting the school
29:15
district yeah i remember a couple years
29:17
back they donated a 3d printer to um my
29:19
daughter's middle school borough school
29:21
of morris plains which is a big deal
29:24
yeah so yeah they do a lot of great
29:25
things we're happy to be uh supporting
29:27
them supporting them and then we love
29:28
giving back to the local restaurants we
29:30
had our our big oktoberfest party at the
29:32
end of october
29:34
and uh we had a catered by the
29:36
grasshopper off the green right
29:38
they did all kinds of sausages and
29:40
bratwursts and sauerkrauts and
29:42
the people just raving about the food
29:44
they did an excellent excellent job and
29:45
we love to support them
29:47
uh
29:48
and then our friends down for early
29:50
pizza for example you know we do
29:51
security board posts with them
29:54
[Music]
29:56
and then of course you know
29:58
football sunday we'll buy pizza from
30:00
pomodoros and and give it away you know
30:03
because
30:04
we don't have a kitchen here we have
30:05
pretty much every takeout menu in
30:07
morristown by the door when you walk in
30:09
here and we encourage people to you know
30:11
to order something and they'll deliver
30:13
it or
30:14
you know pack a picnic so many great
30:16
places right around here in this area oh
30:18
yeah across the street they'll get a
30:19
pizza here in 10-15 minutes and and try
30:22
to partner up with as many places as
30:24
possible because you know it's it's
30:26
mutually beneficial you know exactly for
30:28
us to be here for them and vice versa so
30:30
uh yeah it's been great you know we're
30:32
still new uh but but we're trying to
30:35
make sure that we're you know
30:37
a part of the community yeah
30:39
and then even when we had a you know we
30:41
had a you know
30:43
a line in the waiting room we just went
30:45
down to the tavern and and spoke to the
30:47
gals at the time and said hey do you
30:48
mind if we send people down here
30:50
if they're waiting to sit down and like
30:52
no we love it we love it so yeah we
30:54
always just send people yeah
30:56
well we'll call you we'll call you but
30:58
uh yeah now that things are better we
31:00
haven't had that problem in a while yeah
31:02
yeah
31:02
no no that's awesome and i think that
31:04
that's super important and obviously
31:06
like you said i mean it's mutually
31:07
beneficial so i would imagine it would
31:09
be pretty well received by a lot of
31:10
businesses around here that don't sell
31:12
alcohol but can you know just works out
31:15
something with with you guys which i
31:16
think is great um and probably why they
31:18
wanted you here as opposed to other
31:21
somebody some other parts of morristown
31:23
but
31:24
um also one of the things i think is
31:26
cool is that you know you mentioned
31:27
earlier that you have the board games in
31:29
here so people can come in and play
31:30
board games but now you started doing
31:32
like trivia stuff you started having
31:33
live music in here um you know there's a
31:35
lot of stuff you mentioned the
31:36
oktoberfest party so there's a lot of
31:38
things going on to try to like make it
31:40
more than just obviously like you come
31:42
in you have a beer and you leave
31:44
so talk to me about maybe some of those
31:45
kinds of things that you guys do um to
31:47
hopefully get people interested in
31:49
coming down and checking them checking
31:51
them out
31:52
well yeah being family friendly is you
31:54
know really high on our list we
31:55
mentioned that but um yeah we have live
31:57
we have trivia every wednesday live
31:59
music thursday we're going to be
32:01
shifting live music to
32:03
saturdays
32:05
we do two bands usually one in the
32:07
afternoon and one in the evening
32:10
all local musicians
32:12
one of the other big things that we're
32:14
going to be launching um
32:16
soon is we've partnered with a company
32:18
called uh
32:19
for the parks
32:21
uh it's a national um
32:23
t-shirt making company okay and we
32:26
um we licensed or realized we had an
32:29
illustrator draw us a picture george
32:31
washington we call him groovy george
32:33
he's got big
32:35
big tango sunglasses on sunglasses on
32:38
yeah and uh has a reflection of
32:41
the glenbrook in in in the uh in the
32:44
glasses right and they're making our
32:46
t-shirts for us and
32:48
sweatshirts and
32:49
uh with every purchase four percent of
32:51
that goes back into the national park
32:53
system oh cool and um including
32:56
hopefully morristown which is a national
32:59
historical park you know all the parks
33:00
that you know yeah jackie hollow
33:03
and fort nonsense yeah all the ones that
33:05
we you know
33:07
we've been basing our model off yeah i
33:10
love that giving back to the park yes
33:12
it's huge yeah it's very cool um and
33:14
then also i know that you had mentioned
33:16
uh before we even started recording just
33:17
so i made sure that i didn't forget
33:18
anything um you're doing toys for tots
33:21
stuff now you're doing a food drive now
33:23
um talk to me maybe about some of those
33:24
kinds of things and and you know what i
33:27
i'll get to my next question after you
33:29
guys talk about that so you you go first
33:31
and then because i just have so many
33:32
things that i want to talk about all at
33:33
once but we have to do one at a time
33:35
that's how this show works so talk to me
33:37
about those things and then we'll kind
33:38
of progress from there yeah so so many
33:40
things
33:41
so
33:42
wednesdays which are trivia night and
33:44
shout out best best men trivia uh our
33:47
friends uh started doing that here uh we
33:50
were their first client now they have
33:52
four clients so and there's a reason for
33:54
that because they're outstanding yeah
33:56
but anyway so with them we started doing
33:58
a food drive uh working towards
34:00
thanksgiving which we uh will be doing
34:02
it to the interfaith food pantry uh so
34:04
we want to do that with with with them
34:06
so we've been collecting food um so
34:09
great i know by the time this posts
34:11
it'll be too late for that but in the
34:13
future we're going to be collecting for
34:14
the interfaith food pantry and other and
34:16
other
34:16
and other organizations uh we're also
34:19
for in anticipation of the holiday
34:21
season we're uh
34:23
we're doing a toys for tots drive uh so
34:25
hopefully we get a bunch of toys for uh
34:27
for those folks that are yeah and yes
34:30
yeah um so yeah we want to do as many
34:32
things like that as possible that's
34:34
that's an important initiative to us
34:36
yeah
34:37
yeah and so talk to me about like is it
34:40
so sometimes i've i've talked to
34:42
business owners that do a lot of stuff
34:44
and obviously you guys are doing a ton
34:46
which we just talked about um talk to me
34:48
about maybe the the balance that it is
34:50
between running a business and then
34:52
working with the community to make sure
34:54
that like you know you're building that
34:56
good will but also not over extending
34:58
yourself to to do things that you
34:59
they're just outside of your time
35:01
constraints i guess does that make it
35:03
difficult you know we work we work
35:04
closely with the morristown partnership
35:06
and they kind of have their schedule of
35:08
events and that kind of helps keeps us
35:09
keeps us grounded right so like we know
35:11
we did the fall festival on the green
35:13
you know so we knew we had to have a
35:14
tent there we ordered some merchandise
35:17
in advance so we could give out you know
35:18
stuff
35:19
to the to the community
35:21
um
35:22
but that's really it really it is it's
35:24
it's getting that uh that calendar of
35:27
events yeah just being
35:29
it's being organized right and then
35:30
planning far enough out in advance so
35:32
we're not scrambling at the last minute
35:35
i mean some of these we got invited to
35:37
so many beer festivals all over the
35:39
state and we kind of had to prioritize
35:41
those
35:42
because one travel
35:44
and you know
35:45
is the effort
35:46
you know do we have the staff that can
35:48
do it so it really is getting out in
35:50
front of that calendar and just laying
35:52
out
35:54
what and when we want to do it yeah
35:55
exactly yeah it's easy to get
35:56
overextended you know we have right all
35:58
this all this coming at you at the same
36:00
time yeah and uh yeah just trying to
36:02
stay organized in the beginning it was
36:04
it was really a it's kind of a fire joke
36:06
you know we're both working on great
36:08
jobs and going as fast you can just
36:10
trying to put on fires and it seems like
36:11
every day there's a new challenge yeah
36:13
like this this week um monday the
36:16
children roof goes down so okay so all
36:18
the beer temperatures and then the day
36:19
after that the pos system
36:22
you know it dies
36:23
yeah when it rains and pours as they say
36:25
yeah so and there's always stuff to do
36:28
and it just seems like there's
36:29
constantly you know getting hand
36:30
grenades tossed at us yeah that's part
36:31
of the excitement though right right
36:33
it's it's fun right
36:35
yeah that's a great way to look at it
36:36
and i think that also it it helps that
36:39
like because you're developing such a
36:41
strong relationship within the community
36:42
particularly here in morristown that
36:44
like you know that
36:46
while you're running around with your
36:47
hair on fire
36:48
you're still doing good things and
36:50
developing those relationships even more
36:52
so i think it's amazing so if people are
36:54
listening to this episode and for some
36:56
reason they haven't checked you guys out
36:57
or whatever um give me like website
37:00
social handles the physical address of
37:03
the space here like where can they go to
37:05
learn more about glenbrook and you guys
37:08
yeah
37:09
glenbrookbrewery.com
37:10
nice pretty pretty simple yeah all the
37:13
you know instagram facebook we're on we
37:15
can find us on those those those pages
37:17
we try to do updates
37:19
every other day there
37:21
website
37:22
has frequently asked questions and phone
37:24
numbers
37:25
um
37:27
the current beer menu right on
37:29
brewery.com
37:30
we finally got a uh a permanent sign out
37:33
front
37:34
so people can find us we're at 95 moore
37:36
street uh down the driveway behind
37:39
t-mobile
37:40
um
37:41
you know across from the new m station
37:43
just down the street from the train
37:45
station yep um
37:48
and then you know we're hopefully
37:50
in the spring we're going to finish off
37:52
the patio we put new pavers down there
37:53
and outdoor picnic tables
37:55
i love the outdoor space yeah we're
37:57
going to put three-quarter three-quarter
37:59
uh high fence out there with some
38:01
lattice top so you can see a little bit
38:03
more of the sky we'll put some sunset
38:04
sun
38:05
sun sails up
38:07
to uh block the sun
38:09
uh which will hopefully give us some
38:11
more curb appeal
38:12
maybe paint glenbrook brewery down the
38:14
side of the building yeah we're not done
38:16
yet yeah yeah a lot of stuff to do yeah
38:18
um okay so
38:20
here i gotta look over there there's
38:22
four beers in a flight here
38:24
okay so we're gonna do this for each of
38:26
you if and maybe if it's the same maybe
38:28
it's different if somebody comes down
38:30
here like let's just say today and
38:33
they're like i need a flight just to get
38:35
a sampling of all the beers that you
38:37
guys have what would be your four
38:39
recommendations that they should get
38:41
right out of the gate granted it's it's
38:43
based on taste but i'm asking you for
38:45
your taste and then for darren's
38:47
uh yeah darren's taste sorry based on
38:49
taste okay oof that's a good one good
38:51
question all right so i think i want to
38:53
start with the colsh just one platinum
38:55
award it's outstanding sure it's right
38:56
yeah we made it lead with your lead with
38:58
the great one yeah right we made it kind
39:00
of because
39:02
the market that's out there you know a
39:03
lot of people there's a lot of people
39:04
that drink all kinds of beers but most
39:06
of the market is you know miller like
39:07
budweiser poor's light you know that is
39:10
the bulk of the market um so we wanted
39:12
to make a beer that satisfies that
39:14
market but also keeps the integrity of a
39:15
craft beer yeah so we developed the coal
39:18
intentionally
39:19
to fill that
39:20
need
39:21
so i think that's a good one i would do
39:23
something seasonal like the pumpkin
39:26
i think our morristown ipa as far as
39:28
ipas go the things that it's outstanding
39:30
uh just
39:32
hazy juice bomb i think we we have it on
39:33
the menu that's what it is it's just
39:35
it's delicious and then uh so that's my
39:38
favorite one from in an ipa mood and
39:40
then i think the pour is a nice way to
39:42
round it out especially this time here
39:44
you know it's a you know nice creamy
39:46
porter
39:47
not too high alcohol content
39:49
notes of coffee and
39:51
coffee chocolate vanilla it's really
39:53
nice so yeah that's when we're gonna age
39:56
in the bourbon barrels yeah so we're
39:58
excited for that too nice i think that's
39:59
my that's my flight you've got the
40:00
kolsch the seasonal the morristown and
40:02
the porter
40:04
daryn
40:05
i love seeing flights that are full of
40:07
color the beards have a lot of good
40:09
colors in them so like light to dark but
40:12
um i think i mentioned the seltzers
40:13
that's one of my go-to especially after
40:15
all a hard day work
40:17
uh it's just refreshing over ice but
40:20
uh the accidental shandy
40:22
was like a home run
40:24
was during service training and and
40:27
uh the girls were making flights and
40:29
they they were you know
40:31
she just accidentally mixed two beers
40:33
the colonial and and the mango seltzer
40:36
and he looked at it and she was about oh
40:38
oh darn let me i got to start over and
40:40
he said no no no stop let me let me let
40:42
me try that and he tried it and it was
40:44
became the accidental shandy so i
40:46
probably would highly recommend
40:47
accidental shandy because the the
40:49
seltzer and
40:51
and shandy are really good for for for
40:53
people that aren't really beer drinkers
40:55
per se yeah yeah right so they lighten
40:57
it up they're they're light so i would
40:58
start that's where i would start on the
40:59
light spectrum i definitely would would
41:02
add the culture in there
41:03
um just because it's it's just fantastic
41:08
i like the alfred bale amber ale so now
41:10
we're going we're going a little later
41:11
later
41:12
and then i probably
41:14
if depending on on on
41:16
the season i would probably end with
41:18
either
41:19
uh oktoberfest or the pumpkin because
41:21
there's a darker stuff yeah love it yeah
41:24
i had to put you guys on the spot at the
41:25
very end so yeah it's hard to pick
41:26
between like your kids
41:29
maybe just like just get like as many
41:31
flights as you can to round out every
41:32
beer that you have so yeah um awesome so
41:35
glenbrookbrewery.com is the website
41:37
we're here at what's the number address
41:39
95 95 morris ave more streets morris
41:42
street i knew that uh so 95 morris
41:44
street glenbardbury.com
41:46
get on down here you'll probably see me
41:48
here um with my girlfriend uh drinking
41:51
because that's what you do here uh but
41:53
uh darren and heath this was tremendous
41:55
so thank you so much for having me down
41:57
here appreciating me on the show
42:00
where's he going he wants to show you
42:02
the new the new logo oh the new logo
42:04
movie
42:05
groovy george yeah
42:07
all right we're just we're just waiting
42:08
for groovy george before we wrap this
42:09
episode up so the youtube people can see
42:12
it
42:13
the audio people won't so then you'll
42:15
have to just go watch the youtube video
42:16
to get
42:17
get the picture this is how we create
42:19
suspense yeah right this is how you
42:21
create suspense
42:27
ooh i love that it's like on like the
42:28
dollar bill kind of background there
42:31
yeah i love that
42:32
there you go youtube version just got a
42:35
sneak peek so when when is this coming
42:37
out this will be out by the time the uh
42:39
this episode posted january yeah
42:41
t-shirts long-sleeve t-shirts hoodies
42:43
magnets
42:45
koozies yeah i'm a sucker for merch i
42:47
love it all benefiting the parks love it
42:50
awesome all right well that's good i'm
42:52
definitely gonna get one of those myself
42:53
um awesome so guys again thank you thank
42:56
you for the sneak peek thank you for
42:57
everything um and thank you for coming
42:59
on the show yeah awesome thanks for
43:01
having us thanks for having us
43:02
absolutely i appreciate it uh and
43:03
everybody else thank you for listening
43:05
i'll put those uh um email addresses or
43:08
email addresses websites social handles
43:10
in the show notes along with greetings
43:12
from thegardenstate.com if you want to
43:13
reach out learn more about the show
43:14
learn more about upcoming guests that we
43:16
have on the show i would love to hear
43:18
from all of you thank you for listening
43:20
and we will catch you next time
43:23
[Music]
43:30
[Music]
43:56
you
