Pop Culture podcast ep 8 Jan 2024: Creativity in beer with Mash Gang's Michael Baggs

8:14PM Jan 6, 2024

Speakers:

Kat Brown

Helen O'Hara

Keywords:

drink

beer

people

flavours

brewery

big

brewing

alcohol

taste

love

helen

jordan

guinness

non alcoholic

idea

pints

soft drinks

stouts

bit

favourite

Welcome to pop culture the podcast that brings soft drinks to the top of the menu. I'm Kat brown jack of all trades and four years sober.

And I'm Helen O'Hara, film journalist, author and lifelong teetotaler. So hello. Welcome back to pop culture everybody. We've officially launched hooray.

It's not just a soft launch anymore. hard hard like alcohol free whiskey. No. Lost lost that Helen, what would be hard hard like the recyclable positive feeling of a glass bottle of tonic water? Oh, god help me hard

like trying to carry out all my family's empty schouler bottles after Christmas. There we go. Finding room for them in the fridge there. That's that's the real challenge here. What have you been up to this weekend? Have you been doing anything exciting?

Well, part of the reason that the ability to lose words has completely fallen out of my head is that I had some friends around for the first mini book club of 2024 and then immediately got a cold from the excitement having more than one person in my house that I wasn't related to. So no, I'm just feeling slightly sorry for myself as I had that awful winter pre Christmas cold that just seemed to be going around and around and around everybody like it is best of Whirlpool. So just nicking vitamin D and presumably hunting out drinks enriched with zinc. And basically anything that anybody has even vaguely said might have cold reducing properties

about you. I went through that or before Christmas because I had it for eight weeks that bloody nightmarish by the end I was more honey and lemon than women.

I mean, it was very professional view hell and it would have your eight week cold before we launched the podcast.

I try except I was doing two other broadcasts at the time so it didn't work out super well. But hey, what you're gonna established

Ellen, they're established. It's fine. What are we drinking today?

Well, today we are drinking green coke. sour cherry. I think it's called Green sour cherry. Now I look at it but it looks like a Coke can. I'm very confused. I am excited because sour cherries are nice. I like them. I don't wish to be needlessly controversial, but that's my stance.

Oh my god, Helen, people are going to complain. They're going to write in letters, the greener brigade. I've actually had this before and still was just like, Oh, I've got green coke in my fridge. It's a very distinctive typeface on the front of the can if you look at it sort of sideways you're like well, that's obviously coke because it's a bit twiddling and a bit fat.

That's what I thought but

there's just the goodness of green goodness. Please check.

Should we crack it open? Yes, please.

Extremely genuinely cherry. And I say that because not everything that is quote unquote cherry flavoured tastes anything like cherries. Now this doesn't taste particularly sour cherry to me. I'm gonna be honest, but it does taste extremely actual cherry.

No completely. I bought a cherry pie for book club. And you could tell it was cherry picks. There were literal physical cherries in it, but it was just so gloopy and sweet and generic that it could have been a large but less exciting Mr. Kipling pie, whereas this is bloody good.

The idea of this one I think is that it is supposed to be no added sugar, no aspartame and 100% taste with sweetener from stevia plant which sounds a little bit like someone who doesn't speak English wrote it, but that's fine. And

I love to work in Fleetwood Mac. This entire can is just filled with words to trip over the person who has only ever seen things written down. Is it aspire to me, is it 100% test day stevia plant. Fortunately, a drink is absolutely delicious. Oh, Helen, we are slightly not victimised. What's the other one vindicate cranking through to February, because it says green cola.com on the back. So it Okay, so I don't totally make it up. I mean, they are to be fair, flying fairly close to the wind again with that typeface and the green cola. Because isn't there a green coke there's some type of Coca Cola that is allegedly slightly better for you. There's one that uses a slightly different type of sugar that's vaguely organic or something. Maybe just a green Coke or thing. Oh my God, it was called Coca Cola life course it bloody was oh,

not interesting. I was just speaking to someone who said that tasted awful. I don't recall ever tasting it

the can for Coca Cola live is the most unpleasant shade of green. According to the company Coca Cola life is sweetened with a blend of sugar and stevia leaf extract which is green and both are naturally sourced. However, it has faced criticism that its sugar levels are still very high. Which is not a problem for green sour cherry. Not coke but cola drink adjacent Yeah, so

this says it's got 3.3 grammes of sugar 330 millilitre can which seems pretty low to me, not nothing but pretty low. I just did look up that Coca Cola life colour that's horrible. It looks like army surplus coke and I don't like it and I don't approve, and I feel like if they address Santa in that colour instead of Coca Cola Read, he would not approve either.

This green sour cherry cola adjacent drink tastes much sweeter than it should given the amount of sugar that is or isn't in it.

Yeah, well, that's but that's not the drink we're talking about today is it we are kind of focusing on a blank spot. Let's be honest, in my knowledge, which is alcohol free beer, I feel like we should probably find that some of the beers we may be talking about might have a tiny bit of alcohol in them about the amount of a ripe banana. But generally speaking, alcohol free beer seems to be one area where real progress has been made in the past 10 or so years. What can you tell me cat about this vast, blank spot in my knowledge? Well,

Helen, I probably wouldn't wave a beer in your face and go Helen, you love sugary drinks. You really gotta love alcohol free beer. I never drank beer when I was younger, because it was so revolting, thin, incredibly sour, horrid. And I was always genuinely amazed that people would bother drinking pints of this stuff, whether they're at festivals at university, when you could just have like gin and get drunk a bit more effectively, which seems to be the point for everything. And when I stopped drinking years later, so 2019 And I did actually pick up a few of these potlucks, my husband is quite into beer. And during the pandemic ordered tonnes of alcohol free beer to find some nice things to sort of go in the fridge without gently peddling himself every day. And my god, they've just improved so much. There's also really interestingly, a lot of breweries, particularly in the UK, that are focusing exclusively on producing alcohol free beers. So it's not just the big players, I really, for example, have Peroni zero, which is obviously a 0% version of the very popular beer and pretty much any big name alcoholic beer that you can think of will have a non alcoholic alternative now, not just for people who are on antibiotics or pregnant or you know, big losers, Dave, what you're doing, but just because lots of people are now reaching for an alcohol free option, because they're pretty delicious. And the pressure to drink seems to be skipping somewhat now, particularly now that the younger generation have come in as we've spoken about before. And people who would initially work for a long time have experienced that sort of pressure of perhaps got different responsibilities in their lives and realistically aged up to a point where hangovers are borderline unbearable. One of my favourites favourite brewers is big drop who again only make alcohol free beer and they do an absolutely beautiful take on an IPA which is a slightly I need a listener now to write in to describe an IPA but it's almost quite floral, not as thick as something like a stout or a Guinness, either visually or taste wise. But just quite nice friendly drink like really good in the summer, they've often got something tropical added or even a little bit floral, but not in a sugary elderflower sort of way. They're just delicious, because they're not sweet, a flavour profile all in all on their own, but you will taste one eventually and there'll be like nothing you've ever tasted before.

IPA is India Pale Ale. So what does that mean? It was literally made for people in hot climates. I mean, I'm making wild assumptions there.

I dimly remember the IPAS were brewed to take to India. So they had a slightly different brewing process, different to lager, but still lovely and fresh. And again, because it's not alcoholic. It has that slightly lighter taste and texture to it. BrewDog used to do and I think has recently brought back a brilliant one called hazy AF and I drank loads of those in the pandemic when I lost all my work and ended up stripping and repainting the front door for a week. But your front door

does look magnificent. Now that's gorgeous. Make that clear. So yeah, how long did it take you then to get into the taste of beer has this literally been a sort of 20 year odyssey to begin to like beer,

it definitely helped. I'd obviously drunk alcohol for considerably long time before but there are so many alcoholic drinks that you either like or you don't, they might just have flavours that are too strong. Like I never really enjoyed Negroni, which were a very fashionable cocktail for a very long time and quite bitter. I only really liked particular whiskies for example, so there was a lovely PT one called Laphroaig that I really enjoyed because it tasted a bit like you were tasting a world rather than just a whiskey it was very atmospheric. And I like those drinks that almost sort of tell you a story more than anything. And I think that's something that I really enjoy from the non alcoholic beers now, because whereas with a lot, but not all of the alcohol free spirits there they feel that the story is missing. Whereas lots of the things that have been made specifically as an alcohol free drink by people who want that flavour and want something more and aren't just filling a gap, which always just feels a little bit miserable and joyless. They can just be really fun and interesting. And again, I just really liked bottles, and I don't want to go around drinking like orange Gina all the time because I just would and my teeth would fall out in two seconds flat.

I love an orange. In fact, the one time I visited a brewery was the Guinness store in Dublin Of course it's a major tourist attraction in Dublin. Everybody goes. And if you at least at that time if you were not drinking Guinness at the end of the tour, they gave you orange Pina instead. Oh, that's my go to beer substitute officially. On the one occasion where I had the chance to drink beer. It was like No, give me the orange Jeana,

a dimly remembered urban myth that if you had a pint of Guinness and an orange that was all of your nutritional needs covered, and I love the idea that maybe an orange Chino provides the same thing. Sadly, I've

heard more about that rumour, and I believe it's something like 21 pints of Guinness and Five pints of orange juice. And sadly, the amount of alcohol involved would offset all of the other nutrients that you are getting. But I believe it is true that women in maternity wards in Dublin used to be given Guinness because it was considered to be high in iron and things like that, that they needed after giving birth. So I think that was true. I don't know if that's true of Guinness zero. Maybe that's something we can investigate over the course of this series because hey, there may be women out there who are drinking it during pregnancy and don't know about its possible postpartum benefits

we have also had some letters and some voicemails this week, which is lovely for our as yet unlabeled mailbag. I did suggest tea bag to Helen earlier and then immediately had to recuse myself because I was giggling

Hello, and happy holidays. This is Eden Kendall, one of the hosts of uncluttered and unfiltered the podcast for women over 50. And I love your topic of non alcoholic drinks because I'm a runner, and I regularly host bar trivia. And sometimes I can't have an alcoholic beverage because I might be hitting new pavement the next day. So I typically will bring Ken Bucha with me and the bartenders where I go don't mind it and I just poured over ice. It has that bite to it that feels like an alcoholic drink and it comes in so many flavours so it kind of hits the spot perfectly. Helen

is the one remaining runner between us. What are your thoughts on Bucha the night before a race? That

was such a lovely message and I am so so on the same train. I think that's a great idea. Kombucha generally very, very healthy. I like it. It is a little bit of an acquired taste because of that vinegar Enos you know, and you wouldn't necessarily sit down and drink gallons and gallons of the stuff. But I think it's a great growing up sippable alternative if you're at a bar doing a bar quiz, and you just want something that you can regularly set and be part of the conviviality of the moment. I think it's a really good option and Yeah, lovely to meet virtually at least a fellow runner because it is something that we like gets talked about an awful lot on the course actually is units there are some people who run so they can have a drink afterwards. But then there are lots of people who are trying to figure out what else they can reward themselves with or how to negotiate the nights when they're not drinking because they're running the next day. So yes, super super with that. Yeah, Eden thank you so much for getting in touch and I actually did have a couple of other messages from runners on Twitter. We should probably call it by its other name, but I refuse because I'm just I'm just not doing it. Quite a few people who got in touch there because I asked about people's favourite low or no alcohol beer. So for example, John P Merrigan. said I've been given pints of Erdinger alcohol fray I think that's German. I'm very expert at the finish of both of Berlin and Manchester marathons. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a drink more than those are slightly. You see it really as a thing for runners.

I just had a panic attack at the end of the London Marathon and was given no alcohol free beer whatsoever.

That's where they're going wrong. If you'd had a alcohol free beer, you might have been fine. We also

had an email from a Frohman which is I think my new favourite name in the world. Haven't you had an extra detail to shed light on this?

I'm not sure I do. But in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off He masquerades as Abe Froman the sausage king of Chicago in order to get a booking at a fancy restaurant so at least in my head, it is the sausage king of Chicago who is now in contact with us and that is very

exciting. He says hello really enjoying the pod so far? Thank you a beer 50 quid is in the post I can heartily recommend Fevertree is Mexican lime soda. They have a range of pretty overrated and expensive artsy mixes. But this one is excellent. I'd really like to see Arnold Palmer's on the map in the UK. Can you help with this, please? Nobody's ever heard of them and they are exquisite. Even at really fancy places that stock the correct ingredients. You have to find a very patient bartender in a quiet moment who's willing to let you talk them through it all you'd really need behind the bar is a jug of iced tea and it'd be easy to make you can add a splash of just about anything fruity to the mix to lime instead of lemon is great a splash of orange or cranberry juice syrups etc. or mint that's normalise Arnold Palmer's over here. I want them in 500 millilitre bottles and the meal deal fridges thanks.

That is a good idea. So Arnold Palmer's for anyone who doesn't know he was a golfer I believe, but his drink is iced tea. plus a lemonade and it's classic combo but all of those variations on kind of interesting actually, I think the

closest that we've got is NES tea or what used to be called Lip tonight, and I did dimly remember seeing that in the meal deal fridges at boots, but possibly in slightly smaller bottles, and perhaps just not as grown up looking more glamorous, but you're right iced tea is something that we don't have enough of over here I think but tea as an ingredient in drinks other than Kombucha is absolutely delicious and makes for really fabulous cocktails with

a higher degree. So yeah, it would be nice to have more of that here and also just to explore iced tea a bit more. I mean, some of the ice teas I've had in the states have blown my head off with the amount of sugar in them and you know me I am a desert girl. I have a lot of sugar tolerance.

But woof maybe Helen 2024 should be our bless your heart summer and we just embrace our inner southern bitchy grumble and just start brewing jugs of the stuff.

Bless your heart.

Hello, this is Martin awestruck. I'm a song by song and neutrino watch. And my favourite soft drink is kombucha. It's a really, really weird drink. There's lots of different flavours. Some of those flavours are awful, and some of them are just a bit strange. And my experience as a result of it been such a weird drink has been kind of similar to my experience of drinking beer when I used to drink beer, because the first time we drink, like no one likes the taste of it. It's not a nice taste. It's an acquired taste. And so it's kombucha. So if you want a sort of slightly near nerdy neck beer dish journey into a drink that initially you think is sort of smells of stale puddles, laden with beer, Kombucha is the perfect drink for you. I can't really recommend the brand because there's tonnes out there and they're so different. Some of fizzy, and some of them are just like a mild.

Oh, I love that. Thank you, Martin is such a perfect segue for this episode, I'd never really thought about kombucha being an acquired taste, because it was a taste that I acquired from the off, whereas my husband just thinks it's like being hit in the teeth with a bucket of hammers, computers can all taste completely different. But I suppose the base flavour is just there. And you either sort of lean into it or or you don't, but it can be extra sweetened. It can have fruity bits, and it can have completely Looney Tunes flavours. And there's also just the ones that you can get in press, if you want the very entry level one, is it an enormous markup,

they are not cheap. But the comparison to craft beer I think is spot on. Because it does give you so much scope for argument for development. And also, as you know, for trying your own one at home and experimenting with what you can do with it. Which, you know, I have not had the guts to do yet. You're way ahead of me there but but it does have that kind of energy to it. He's absolutely right.

There's definite nerdery abounding. I don't think I ever recovered from looking at my SCOBY and being reminded of Martha with rain in the jar mutant from the X Men comics. But lo Helen we must segue must segue on and why are we segwaying and where and who and for why

we are segwaying to our very exciting guests. So we have joining us Mike bags who is one of the founders of mash gang who are a no and low alcohol craft beer company. And I think they're gonna go into other drinks as well. There's some little hints if you read their interviews, and you look around on their website, and you'll listen to what Mike is about, say spoiler they're developing, but they are basically a group of school friends, including chief Brewer Jordan childs and CEO James Loveday, who decided to start a business during lockdown and settled on this no and low alcohol brewing concern because several of them had young kids and you couldn't, as you said, you know, sit around drinking every evening and then have to pull yourself out of bed and deal with life the next morning. The group of them are scattered up and down the country. But Michael Jordan were in London recently because Jordan was actually nominated for Brewer of the year. Sweet smooth. Yeah. Which is a big deal for again, a lower no alcohol Brewer. I think he's not been nominated twice, but it is still a very, very rare thing. Now Jordan was sadly called away to deal with a tricky batch of product but Mike was able to sit down with me and talk to me all about their journey. So here is Mike bags. So yes, Michael bags Chief Strategy Officer, we think you are

Yeah, that sounds about right, Chief founder. Yeah, co founder of mash gang. Yeah,

fantastic. So tell me about mash because I feel like a lot of people started with or tinkered with brewing during lockdown you guys however, the mash gang has gone quite a bit further than that.

I caught COVID really early on, a bunch of my friends did as well. And we all basically worked in industries that were shut down. So I was consulting at London Stadium at the time. All I did was basically help cancel Green Day and bunch of other events. In the end, Jordan ran a big tattoo studio Ben was Elton John's photographer, Alex and James both worked within trade in different ways

you guys knew each other from school is that right? Yeah, yeah, we

all knew each other from school. We had nothing to do. So we sat in a telegram group, we're all basically furloughed or unemployed or underemployed because, you know, Elton John wasn't really touring. We started kicking around ideas and we start off making jam. We went from normal jam to extreme jam quite quickly. We're like, you know, why isn't pineapple jam wasn't a banana jam and like, Jordans not one to ever put anything down. So he picked it up. And he was like, we know, this is wonderful Mexican drink you make with fermented pineapple skin. So I'm gonna try that he got into fermenting. And then at the same time, we're sending each other beer boxes and half of us have got kids. So you know, you can't have a 9% coffee stout in the afternoon, because that ruins your evening. So we tried non alcoholic beers. And we were like, most of these are pretty terrible. So we found one that was good. And we contacted a brewery called northern monk. And we said your beer is great. How do we do this? And they asked Jordan what kit he was using, and he sent back a picture of a damage on in like a rural container in Wales. And they were like, you're an idiot. Come, come, come visit us. We'll have a chat. So he went there. Now we did some of our first brews with them. So with very different to a lot of breweries in UK, I took a class on leadership and politics at Harvard. And I had two teachers. One professor worked both Obama campaigns and one worked on Mitt Romney's campaign. And they basically distilled in us this idea that decentralisation is incredibly powerful. There are like a Bama decentralised power out so like groups of kids in Florida could start running their own campaigns. Donald Trump decentralised a lot of power so he owned that thing, but it was kind of spider and starfish style at once you decentralised power, you can't bring it back. So you know, his followers went a bit off the corner of the map, and there was nothing he could do. But then you get to companies that people like Wikipedia, Uber, they basically decentralised power, lower barriers and let people get in and we were like, Well, why don't we have a decentralised brewery none of us wants to do as a full time job. We don't want to own a brewery. We don't want to deal with logistics and have vans and kettles and all that boring stuff. You haven't say a company so we'll put a grand in hand Jordan learn how to brew. So we know we have to make our own products but we outsourced actual production to Northern monk and we became a phantom brewery. We don't own our own one. We've brewed in London we currently brew in Aberdeen in the UK with fierce we've brewed in Croatia, we've got a site in Chicago now that Jordan's over Milwaukee in a week or so as time setting up brewing there and it's grown. The most unusual part of the story is that we are completely independent. We've brought in no external money today. We started off with 5000 pounds, no outside investment, and we've grown the business to I think seven half million valuation now. And yeah, we we've had listings and supermarkets. I got us a collaboration with Crystal Palace last January. It's the first time our Premier League club had a dry January partner. We've made so many friends along the way. So we the brand is essentially built around community. And whereas a lot of people go like Oh, you know, beer drinkers are an interesting bunch, particularly craft beer drinkers. Like we've had an amount of negativity in the early days, and we just want them over. Because when people would say like, oh, you know, it's rubbish, you know, as the point having alcohol free beer, we reply, and we'd laugh at them. And be like, we know if you're gonna go down that route. Why aren't you drinking Sherry Now like garden? Right? Well, why don't you go get a two pound bottle of sherry and then distil it. So it's just getting the vodka? What's the point in drinking anything other than cleaning spirits? And they'll be like, Oh, okay. Right. Sorry. And we've, we've had breweries that laughed at us initially. And they became that

was one of my questions, actually, is what is the sort of collegiality level of the non alcoholic or low alcoholic beer world? Like, is there a feeling of competition? Or is there a very much still a feeling of it's still such a thing that's growing? Yeah, from a low level to, I think, quite rapidly growing to quite a high level. So is there a feeling of people working together towards a sort of common goal almost at the moment?

Yes, there is very much. So craft brewing is beautiful. Like half of us came from music initially, the music industry, for all of its pitfalls is actually a wonderful place. It's very collaborative. Like we create lots of space for people to come in. I think 20 something percent of people that work in the music industry are neurodiverse. It's a wonderful, great open space. There's lots of lots of lots of terrible people in it. But as an industry, it's quite good. And brewing is exactly the same. Lots of people from independent pumpkin, some have actually moved over to brewing and it's very collaborative. So like, if you look at the other big breweries in the UK, Lucky St. Good Karma jump ship, like they're all friends of ours, like we will know them very well. Jordan and James went along and did a lunch and learn with Luke and Emma Luckey saying like a month or two back the second day, one brand of the year, I was texting Emma, congratulations. We're all brands. And to be honest, I think the market is growing at such a pace the markets way bigger than any of us could ever buy if we capture a percentage of each. We're all multimillion pound companies. I think when you get to the size of a Heineken or Diageo, you know, fighting over every inch of shelf space in a supermarket. It's like life and death for us. It's not we're still having fun. doing great stuff. So

what are your priorities as a company that when you're testing something out, I'm guessing like what is it that makes you all go? Yeah, this one I like this one. Let's do this.

I don't think we've really talked this through publicly before because I'm a strategy guy and I normally sit on bunches of stuff, we basically have two threads, we have one where we go we want to do big, exciting silly things. And that's the cornerstone the business so we do cereal bears and we do big stouts to have two and a half tonnes of cherries in them in similar light and everyone loves these bears but they're the beers that people have one of our like, people rush out and get one people don't buy a 16 pack of a sour mango Margarita there. But having said that, we did a calibration of volt city this year which was only in dreams which was a Strawberry and Lime Margarita pickle back there. And people reported buying like four or five pints of it one after another on top because those loved it so much. So we do the big silly stuff. And on the other hand, we love the basics. It's really unsexy to say in no out or beer in general that we love that loggers and we love no out. I'd like low elk beard Bud Light Michelob Ultra Miller High Life like these are some of our favourite beers from when we were young, like Jordan, I kicked around New York for a long time in punk bands drinking questionable beer on the street corners. And we wanted to bring that back stoop our lager, we spent a year working on getting the final version done, which is a terrible long time to spend on a single beer. And it's our highest rated beer. It's one of the top seven globally ranked loggers, alcoholic or non alcoholic, big brewery or small brewery on the world. And we're incredibly proud of that. And we've also done low life recently, which is our take on like an American blowout beer. And again, similarly, everyone's jumped at it, I loved it. I think we really respect the love and craft that goes into making something that's so easily accessible. And you know, doing that in a way that's doing what a big brewery does as a small brewery is incredibly hard. And I think we're loved and respected for that. Because we don't turn our backs on like, you know, basic things and you can't hide if it's a lager. If it's a good IPA, you can't hide behind throwing mango and stuff. And we don't look out to hide bad beers, we kind of split between the two. And when we know we're going to do something simple and do it beautiful. Like that's a bit it's accessible to everyone I can send them to to my mum, and she loves them. And on the other hand, if we want to do a cookie beer or something, we did some absolutely brilliant pastry beers this year. We know not everyone's going to drink it. And people might look at it and roll their eyes, but they can still drink us.

I mean, I have to say so I'm probably the wrong member of the pop culture team to be here because I'm the one who has never been a drinker at all. So I have never taught myself to like beer and I feel like there is a stage for a lot of people. They go through it as a teenager, in theory at 18. But in practice usually much earlier, where they teach themselves right to like beer. I've never done that. Yeah, I mean, with mash gang beers still be for me, like, is this something? Is it not too late, basically, for me to suddenly become a beer drinker? No,

no, absolutely. I think these are we are the perfect brand. For people like when we did hop city at Leeds, the northern monk like craft beer festival two years in a row, absolutely, and utterly blown away. And when the doors opened the first people to rush through and come up to us and fanboy or people that look like you. It was you know, we we put skeletons and melting phases and stuff on cans, but it's we know half Adrienne because of women. And we know because we make these big delicious beers that people look at it and they go like if I'm going to have some friends over for an afternoon, we basically are the non alcoholic version of Bailey's. And it's a talking point, you go like I've got this beer, which is dark blue. It's orange creamsicle flavoured IPA. And you know, it has a lovely description of the hops and simmer on the back. But we know from when friends have used us for beer tastings, like events, people are surprised and delighted that you know his bears are the big and fun. And I think that's the exact kind of thing that's exciting to people that don't drink but we know that 80% The people that drink mash gang also drink full ABV beers, which is different. We rock the trend we're having 50% Female drinkers, but we also appeal to older and younger drinkers amongst younger drinkers. They're people that may never drink full ABV alcohol they just makin made the choice not to have it. So if you're 20, and you're given the choice of having like a non alcoholic gin and tonic, which if you have no connection to the alcoholic version of that, it's basically like drinking fizzy lemon juice. They're gonna go well, I don't want that I want the big melting face exploding motorbike pig beer, which tastes like raspberry pudding. And it's neon green. That's that's exciting.

Raspberry pudding has grown man but you you do raise another issue that I wanted to ask about, which is that the craft beer world has been notable for having incredible design. There have there are a lot of times when I'm in like a little shishi pub or deli or something and they've got a lineup of craft beers. I'm like, I mean, I suddenly want to drink because those are just beautiful containers. Is that something that you guys have worked on a lot as well because I know you've got quite kind of stripped back labels for your everyday orderable by the KSP errors on your website. But you also do so much more like their designs.

Oh yes, we're all big designers essentially, like half the team are neurodiverse in some way or another and we all love trains And we love artwork and classic logos and designs and colour schemes and so on and so forth. And we bring that to life like we work with some of our favourite designers as a chap who's a member of combat wounded veteran who are incredibly niche, like American power violence band from the 90s and noughties. And Chris does some absolutely beautiful artwork for us. Because Jordan, this boy comes from a background of tattooing. We knew great tattooing artists who knew great people that work in music that happened to do artwork, and we say like, we think you are the right person to do this particular piece. And because of that, we have a really broad palette. I know lots of other breweries would love to work the people we work with. Aside from that they wouldn't be bold enough, because they think you know, if we step away from our traditional kind of branding, people won't know it's us. We're incredibly proud to come from a background of tattooing, street art. And like, generally loving design. The label for stoop has got such a long and winding history to the version you see on stupid steep extra drive, particularly extra drive, actually, it's got the additional shifts and bits of scrolls and stuff added to it. And those actually come from classic Japanese beer cans designs from like the 1940s. Right. I don't think we've ever talked about this, but people wouldn't know. And like when we did national anthem, so the national anthem is the cherry cola ice cream floats. Now we did. And it has three references to Lana Del Rey, on the cannon and the artwork. Again, like this is a massive spoiler. No one's known about this, the national anthem is alarmed our race on the Ocean Drive tunnel is actually used in the imagery. And it's cherry cola, which is opening lyric of songs on for more famous albums. And we just read stuff, culture into everything. And sometimes people get it and they love it. And sometimes they don't. And we feel that if you don't get it, it's still accessible, you can still enjoy it.

That's so fun, though, because it is something for the nerds who are following every release that you do to really pick up on and pick apart. I mean the same way if you're if you're lucky, you could have Swifties after you know the way Taylor Swift decode every utterance, every tweet, every picture, that could be you and a few more years,

it could be we've got some fans who keep albums of our artwork. And it's beautiful. It's nice because we have this relationship with them. So when go like Oh, do you have to have that label because I can't remember when we did this or that there was a point where in order to fit additional nutritional things and like we had to put stuff in different languages because we export all over the world. Now we had to take the founders or traits off the cam, we didn't think anyone noticed because you know, it's pictures of five like ugly guys. And the reaction were people like why are you taking your faces off? Oh, that's very sweet. That's

crazy. You're not ugly for this. I've seen pictures of all five of you. You're not as fine. Tell me that was what's been the most successful things. Have there been things that surprised you? Have there been things that you thought were going to be a surefire, massive hit and have just been kind of a bit more niche has it gone that way, the thing

that we thought would be a surefire hit, which ended up being completely niche, the first Halloween we were together, we did a Halloween beer and the sales of it like preorder. Sales are incredible. And it died in the tank, it failed. So we had to refund everyone we gave them like a different beer instead. And because of that, and we came around to the second year, we were like, alright, well, we'll do another Halloween beer. We'll make it bigger and sillier than before. And we did it and people bought X enjoyed opening cans because it pour green blue. And you know, it looked like something from a horror film. And people enjoyed getting it and opening it but people only got one because no one really wants to drink green blue blue, like four or five times. So we learned quite quickly that those kind of event is don't have to have massive supplies because otherwise you end up sitting with them in a warehouse somewhere. But the biggest surprise we had was everyone said stouts don't sell in summer and we're not directed by trends or forecasting or sense. So we did a run of maybe six or seven stouts this summer and everyone loved them but they sold out immediately. The cherry cola ones one we did a coffee and donuts stout that absolutely flew and people like you know you you can't do this Stout is a all year round beer. It's just a case of people don't talk about it in some way. And the other thing as well as what do you think of stout sometimes you get like a nice chilled Guinness and we basically told people to put it in the fridge and it brought out notes the bed people didn't normally notice from light to dark, chocolatey, warm stouts you put it in the fridge suddenly it's pulling out notes of the cherries and there's an additional layer of scent going on and some of the more bitter ends and the hops. We spend a lot of time working with universities and partnerships to figure out different things. So John and James are massive about bioengineering changing the way we do stuff. We are without a doubt one of the most science first breweries in the UK, which is something we again don't really talk about, you're getting so many weird exclusives which don't ladder up too much. If everyone's trying to rip us off. listen to us talk we spill all the secrets but because of some of these things we do like I'm fascinated that at different temperatures, different flavours dissipate or come more pronounced. I've had beers by breweries I've loved and I've thrown them in the freezer. It's called them down quicker on I've taken them out they've been a couple of degrees too cold and I've gone it tastes like trash. It's water. What have they done? They've changed a hot bill right over I've made a cheaper product for a supermarket. I take one out of fridge an hour later I'm like oh no, it's fine. The big surprise we happen to house and the funny thing is being asked we have no stouts in the range this winter we were releasing like half a dozen loggers and you know loggers delicious. Ice cold and minus two degree temperatures as well why

not turn upside down? So I mean I read one interview with I think Jordan talking about the ambition is not just theory the ambition is kind of everything. Yeah, expansion in new directions experiments with coffee experiments with energy drinks experiments with you name it is this very much medium to long term is the short to medium term. How are you thinking about some of this stuff,

it's all of the above. So we never intended to be a brewery, we started out making jam, we have released a jam, actually, we have our first like adaptogenic soda came out recently dope soda, we essentially when the team renew us, we were like everyone from PBR through to all these micro breweries are like, oh net, then we're doing like CBT by a weed there and stuff. We were like, This is fascinating. And we can't do seven eighths of that. And UK because of laws. So we're like, you know, impossible, like shout out to mark as well, like they're really close to us. And we've done a collaboration with them, we put together our arginine centred bill of additional bits that made you it's their social mix, essentially, it makes you more perky and happier. And we were like, right, how do we do something else that's interesting around this, we started tinkering some of the stuff and its whole idea of like, it could be a soda, like ice cream is gonna be massive for us. Like, if you think about people like Ben and Jerry's, they've done ice cream, they've taken it as far as you can go in that direction. And we want to take it in a completely different direction, but one that's equally as mash gang as any of the stuff we've mentioned above. It's like, can we throw in loads of ingredients that don't necessarily go in ice cream and see what happens. But we, we have every intention of doing coffee, energy drinks and everything you said, it was really interesting, the grocer picked up that we've trademarked both stuff, we actually talked about it, because it became a case that we may have conversation with ideas that we wanted to do, but like it was a moment of like, everything's kind of a lot more public now. And that's something we've not really had to deal with. Before. To be honest, we're still a small company. And suddenly, we've had a really busy year, we won a bunch of awards, Jordan was nominated for of the year twice, in a short period of time by like the most respectable people on earth. He was in personal magazine's 19 most influential people globally in food and drink this year, at the start of the year. I wasn't one of the top three stories of PR week yesterday when I joined, I think our profiles grown at a rate we weren't anticipating, which is great as another three founders, we can turn the spotlight on now and ignore the audit. But I think a lot of the product innovation we're doing it's stuff that breweries wouldn't traditionally do. And I think that's probably because we're not traditionally a brewery also

gives you the freedom like because you're not paying the mortgage on a brewery and having a certain set level of costs that you have to deal with every month, you do have a little bit more freedom to brainstorm. We don't call it brainstorming anywhere in blue sky ideas. Yeah, we can do things we can blue

sky things. This is where we're in a situation we can upscale and downscale really quickly. So if we create something and it works, we can just you know, do much more of it a lot quicker than someone else would have to if they had to build a brewery or get tanks or what have you.

So tell me and tell the listeners more to the point where can they get mash gang? I mean, obviously, you have a website, which we

should probably I mentioned mash gang got beer, I think it's mash gang got shop as well. It's both and you are stocked in various places around the country as well. Yes, we're in if you go to your local bottle shop, you should be able to find us if you can't tell them to order us. We've not done a lot of draft and one of the reasons we've not done draft is because no ALC draft is super challenging. Because if you get bacteria in any of the couplings or something suddenly 0.5% Beer becomes a 5% beer or like you just go sour. We've think we've had big breakthroughs and no ALC draft. So next year, we're going to really, really, really push we want to be on the rail in every great craft pub. Mainstream pub. Hopefully, in the UK, we'd like to be in every sport stadium everywhere you'd think I want to have a drink. I don't want to drink two pints of coke or watching a football match. Alright, well Michael, thank

you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

So yeah, that is the mash gang. It's a really interesting kind of approach to a business to start with that no alcohol standard,

I guess it is I'm just also completely obsessed by their background in music by that punk attitude and aesthetic sort of leaning into brewing, the fact that so many of them are apparently neurodiverse is wonderful. Obviously I identify with that whilst having absolutely no plans to expand my remit into becoming Elton John's personal photographer or brewing beers. But the thing that really blew my mind about this and I think this is again where I can just become fairly rigid about my ideas of drinks and what they can do in general was the flavours that they were making the colours that they were doing. craft brewers in particular get this joy of being able to be a bit more flexible particularly if they have a decent audience over email and through social media is just being able to make up these insane incredibly imaginative and creative limited editions. And just be like, Oh guys, we made this it's blue and green. Enjoy

gonads. Yeah, absolutely. Why? Don't be imaginative, why not have fun with it, you know, and I love that they are doing that and clearly developing quite a passionate following that is then encouraging them towards new madness or insanity or delight, depending on your point of view. So I think it's wonderful community

really is incredibly important and more seriously one of those sayings that does the rounds is that community is the opposite of addiction. Basically, being able to feel invested in a brand almost like a drinks family being excited about what on earth they're going to come up with next is just brilliant. And I also really love the way that so many brands now are doing these limited edition drinks, whether it's changing things up in summer, or bringing darker, more sort of evergreen things through and winter is just fantastic. And it keeps everything fresh. And it also just keeps keeps your tongue alive. Helen, why did I say that? That's really creepy.

No, I like it. And I don't want my tongue to be alive and have its own opinions but equally, it sounds bad to have a dead tongue. So somewhere in the middle there in my call out for people's favourite alcohol free beer. overwhelmingly people were saying the Guinness 0% is just a banger, apparently, and I feel a sort of national pride that I probably should try it. I'll work up to it. Maybe Peroni also came in for a lot of praise. And then a variety of craft beers and things like this Brooklyn Lager special effects, that's very good kindergarten low tide, which has the most charming can ever it has a small dog on it cat.

God googling this immediately.

Lucky st came through?

Yes, we'll recommended that on our Helen McGann episode. I've had a few of those and that's a really decent lager. It's got flavour all the way through, if that makes sense to literally anybody. So it's

good to make a and big drop of a came in. That's I think that's one of the big, big names in the alcohol room. That's got a few mentions. Even someone who got through two pregnancies and breastfeeding cycles on Corona zero, that's from App chocoholic. 132. She says I'm furious. As it turns out, what I missed the most was a bottle of beer in the sun or while cooking dinner. Extensive testing shows it really does taste the same. I drink it off at night as it's cheaper.

They really are actually, I suppose that's one of the things that feels almost counterintuitive given how, like significant the price of drinking a non alcoholic cocktail or spirits or something can be in a posh bar or a restaurant like those can still be around the same price as an alcoholic drink like non alcoholic beers and Thai bottles of non alcoholic fizz. Like really, really reasonable we're talking two three quid so it is a bit more exciting than picking up the same six pack of your usual soft drink. I had no idea there was a Corona zero though. Well, it's a very popular summer beer anyway, because it's all the branding the sort of very, I'm on holiday and this is fabulous. And you normally get it with like a slice of pie wedge. Yes, exactly. And I know

it from the Fast and Furious films.

Cause I mean that's another conversation entirely. If we ever get our lovely friend Manisha Ferdinand on I'm fairly sure we could make an entire tasting menu of non alcoholic versions of the drinks that they have throughout the Fast and the Furious franchise. They're

very big into their Corona and corona means family I guess for them. So who am I?

Well, if you have a favourite drink, or a menu that you'd like to celebrate or shame from somewhere that you visited, or really any burning questions about soft drinks in general or particular then do email us at pop culture drinks podcast@gmail.com or an Instagram we are at pop culture drinks podcast, we went for a really small, you know, manageable handle. I think that's the main thing. We also have a lovely bookshop storefront where you can go and shop for our favourite non alcoholic books, books by us and books by our guests. So if you go to book shop.org and search for pop culture, the soft drinks podcast that should come up and I think that's it for this episode isn't I think

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