Brewbound Pitch Slam 14: Finals - RationAle Brewing

Speaker 1 [00:24] Our last finalist for this round of the pitch slam is Jamie Fay, who is the founder and CEO of Rationale Brewing. Come on up. Good to see you.

Jamie Fay [00:37] Hey, my name is Jamie Fay. I'm the founder of Rationale Brewing, also known as the brews without the booze. Uh, it was only 18 months ago I was sitting around with my two sons, Tyler and Carter, and we're having a conversation around alcohol consumption. My youngest or my oldest son, Tyler was heading off to the University of Alabama, and I was sharing with him not only our family experiences with alcoholism, but also my own youth of, uh, discretions, not necessarily so much, and shared with him how important it was as he went to school that he really was thoughtful around alcohol moderation. And I was, uh, using the word rational 2 or 3 times. You need to make rational decisions around who you're drinking with. You need to make rational decisions on your consumption. And my younger son, Carter jumped in and said, Dad, being a bit of a smart ass, you should consider launching a company called Rationale Brewing. And I laughed and thought, Oh, that's funny. But then we actually took a step back and talked about that and realized it was a huge opportunity. The next morning, my two sons got online. They registered to trademark for rationale, and within a week, uh, I started to dig into the opportunity. I came from the consumer goods industry, 20 years of big CPG and had done 3 years of startups and realized very quickly there was a huge opportunity, dug into the category and saw how fast it was growing. realized that we needed to have a speed to market approach. And, um, we had a window of time of what I thought was probably 16 weeks. Uh, we found our contract brewer in Sonoma County, um, did a contract, did an R&D batch, and by September of 2021, we launched our first product, which you see up here is, which originally is called the Totally rational Citrus Hazy IPA, a big mouthful since we've rebranded, uh, and launched in 16 ounce cans. Uh, fast forward 18 months, or sorry, 12 months later, we are now, um, this is our core 4. We have our 6 packs, uh, with 12 ounce cans. San Diego is where we launched in Encinitas, we wanted to launch in where the heart of the non-elk beer category is growing. Uh, we're brewed up in Sonoma. We've positioned ourselves within the category to be premium in our pricing. Uh, we're really trying to play that trade up role for the retailers. We're $1 to $2 more, uh, on ours versus the average category, and it's our technology that really is allowing us to produce a very different, higher quality, premium tasting beer and body, um, and the core four is citrus hazy, Mexican lager, our West Coast IPA, and our New England hazy. Uh, the de-alkalization process is really what separates us from everyone else. In my opinion, a lot of you got to try the beer yesterday. We're really proud of it, the R&D work that we're doing. It's still evolving, but this is vacuum distillation, so it's very different than the majority of the beers that are on the market today that are de-alkalized. So we see this as really rationales about making, um, sometimes the rational choice is actually the radical choice. There's a big disruption right now within society around alcohol consumption. We want to be part of that program of crushing society's drinking rules. Um, we see this as their needs. To be, uh, the barriers are removed. One of the biggest barriers has been the quality and the taste of the beer. Uh, we also want to put a package in consumers' hands that they feel they really, they feel really proud about holding, uh, ordering at a bar or keeping in their fridge, but also represents who they are. And we're going after the mainstream beer consumer. At the end of the day, we want to build a brand that's going to allow us to really have some swagger, edge, disruption, and have something that's put into the consumer's hand or pulled off a retail shelf that is very different. We're not the wellness beer. We're not the athletes' beer. We're just the mainstream beer consumers' beer, and we want to have something that they're proud to have. The category is growing right now, craft on the non-elk side at over 200%. So we see we have a role to play with in growing this category on the premium side. We have launched, uh, on the West Coast. It's where we're focused right now. A year ago we were in 2 accounts. Today we're in over 200. We've been fortunate and blessed to have some opportunities with Whole Foods and Air One and a handful of other major retailers up and down the West Coast. We're focusing on now building out our distribution footprint and making sure that we have the ability to scale. Uh, most importantly is, uh, the brand activation, sampling, going in the markets. We now have 5 full-time sales leads, and, uh, all we want to do is make sure that this

Speaker 1 [04:41] education.

Jamie Fay [04:44] Almost there.

Speaker 1 [04:47] Really good job. Well done.

Jamie Fay [04:54] I got gong last year, so I gotta be consistent.

Speaker 1 [04:56] Yeah, exactly, exactly. Two gongs means victory, doesn't it? So, uh, if you could just slide on over here for the cameras, because I'm not gonna get yelled at otherwise. Uh, Jess, if we could start with you, um, Jamie, uh, explained that this is not the wellness beer, it's not the athletes beer, it's the mainstream non-alcoholic beer. What do you think of that approach?

Speaker 3 [05:14] I, I think it's smart. I mean, craft beer consumers getting older, uh. I, I fit into that category and you know, you have 2 or 3 or 4 beers and you, you want to have them, but like it's a little groggy the next day. So maybe you mix in one of these or 2 of these. I think that's a smart thing. And it, after a while that it is a big nice chunk of piece of the pie that you guys get from a volume perspective.

Jamie Fay [05:34] Thank you, and I just commented that we actually, we encourage alcohol consumption where we are about moderation. I am a big 7% hazy IPA drinker, but I can't do the numbers that I used to, so now I'll drink my rationales, uh, before or after I start to mix it up, yeah.

Speaker 1 [05:51] Uh, Jamie, um, A, uh, talked about the de-alcoholization process, the sort of proprietary process. Um, what are your thoughts on that, Jamie?

Speaker 4 [05:59] I love it. I think that you guys have found a um a a good R&D approach. I think if you can nail that consistency and really make sure that all the products that you're creating really deliver on taste, I think you've got something here.

Speaker 1 [06:13] Thank you. And Rich, you know, um, again, we see a lot of people drinking non-alcoholic beer a lot more than they had in the past. Um, it's gotta be fun though, right? It's gotta be interesting. It's gotta be something that's incorporating, um, You know, uh, a community into what your brand is doing, um, based on what you saw in the presentation, do you think rationale is on the right sort of step, right process?

Speaker 5 [06:34] Yeah, I think so. I, I like the message of like targeting people that already drink beer instead of just people who, you know, just focus on non-alcoholic beverages. Um, I guess. What I wanna see is just consistently getting that message out like the beer is for me like I don't really, you know, dibble and dabble in non-alcoholic beverages. I just, you know, do too much and but like rationale would be good if it was there and like if it tastes good like just um let people know like so like activating at like alcohol events and do like, hey slide this in real. I see your eyes getting low. Try, try this, and it's letting people know how it fits into their lifestyle. It's like a good opportunity for just like beer drinkers to mix that into their rotation.

Jamie Fay [07:16] Yeah, thank you. The sampling is huge and we have so much fun at the sampling events because we're their spouse or their friend will bring their friend over and they don't realize it's a non-alcoholic beer. And that's probably one of the fun ways actually. Integrate and we also are looking at partnerships with existing alcoholic beers. We just started doing it on social media this week, so there's a lot of work that we have to do, but you're on point for sure because this is an education. It takes time as well. This is not gonna happen overnight. This is an evolution of changing habits of consumers that have been there for, for a lifetime, but it's happening for some faster and for others a little bit longer.

Speaker 1 [07:49] Yeah. Brian, uh, it was a few years ago we had Bill Schfeld from Athletic Brewing participate in the the pitch slam. He didn't win. I think a lot of people were like, uh, non-alcoholic beer, how's that gonna work out? Of course, we've seen how it's worked out. Um, do you see some of the, some parallels in terms of the way athletic has grown and the potential for rationale?

Speaker 6 [08:08] Yeah, for sure. I mean, athletic is proving there's a whole new subcategory of, of legitimate authentic non-al beer that actually tastes good. Um, it's not your father's and grandfather's non-alk beer. So yeah, I think there's definitely a role there, and I think, I think you're smart to find a different lane. Don't go after the athlete. Don't go after this occasion. Find your customer, your occasion. Um, I think it's smart, and I don't know how much you emphasize the process to consumers. I personally wouldn't emphasize it that much. I'd leave with flavor, and if the geeks want to find out how you de-alkalize it, great, but leave with the flavor and why it just tastes good.

Jamie Fay [08:40] Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 [08:42] Outstanding. All right. Outstanding presentation. Well, very, well done. Great job. Mm. Alright, uh, I think all 6 finalists did an amazing job. One more round of applause for all of them. Well done.