Brewbound Pitch Slam 14: Semi-Finals - Chestnut Sports Club

Speaker 1 [00:24] Let's move on to our next guest, our next participant for this pitch slam. The person is Adam Zloto, who is the founder and CEO of Chestnut Sports Club. Come on up. Are you? You can grab either micke and please just keep an eye on your timer. All

Adam Zloto [00:41] right, all right. All right, well, as many of you have probably noticed, that recreational sport has absolutely exploded over the last few years. Golf, tennis, I mean, you couldn't even avoid pickleball if you tried. So for more and more people, the courts and the courses have become the new bar, myself included. But when I would go to grab beers, I found myself having to make a choice between a super light beer with limited flavor, or on the other side, a super flavorful beer that would eventually weigh me down. And I was looking for something right in between, something light and tasty. And after coming up empty-handed on a search, I decided to make my own. I'm Adam Zloto and I'm here to introduce Chestnut Sports Club, the playable beer, a light, refreshing, and damn tasty beer brewed with organic ingredients. It's really the beer you've been looking for. It's low carb, low calorie, but high fives. We're aiming to launch two styles this spring. A light citrus lager brewed with organic, uh, with organic lemon zest, a drop of coconut water, and a little California honey to round out the flavor, and a light white ale, deliciously brewed with organic orange peel. So that's why we call it the playable beer. It's our take on drinkable or sessionable. The, uh, definitions right there, very refreshing, suitable for drinking more than one, and used in a sentence like, damn, Larry, those chestnuts are super playable. We recently completed our first marketing run and had an awesome response. So we're looking to take a thoughtful omni-channel expression this spring and fall, or in this spring in California. And lastly, with access to open spaces being an important thing for our communities, we'll be donating a portion of our proceeds back to local city parks. And for the folks in the crowd, if you want to take some chestnuts for spring, a spin, we'll be down at the sample bar. So, thanks so much, everybody.

Speaker 1 [02:42] Damn, Larry, these chestnuts are super playable. I like that. I like that. Um, Jess, you had an opportunity to try chestnut this morning. What do you think? I, I

Speaker 3 [02:51] really liked it. I mean, I think this is a, a, a, a really interesting space. I don't know if everyone agrees with me at my company, but Um, you, you see like the, the super high alcohol doing really well and then it's like NA's are, are, are, are doing well, but I, you know, sometimes I don't want, you know, 100 calories for no alcohol. So like where do you, where do you draw that line, and I, you know, I was just saying like a 2.5, 3% beer is, is kind of what I'm looking for. So I think it's. You know, it's a, it's a, it's fitting a niche.

Speaker 1 [03:17] Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, Ryan, this was brought up last night. You know, this sort of fits into an interesting space between non-alcoholic and full alcohol beer. I mean, is there demand for that space?

Speaker 4 [03:27] Yeah, I mean, if you look at Michelob Ultra, it's a huge brand. It gets better every year. I think this, this can go after that consumer at a more flavorful approach to it, you know, more craft premium branding. I think it's interesting. Mhm.

Speaker 1 [03:39] Rich, um, you know, Adam mentioned that this is the beer that people are looking for. Do you agree with him?

Speaker 5 [03:45] Yeah, you just gotta find your community. Uh, we do a lot of outreach ourselves and we know like from the consumers' mouths they do want something in between like the very light macro brands and like the really heavy IPAs that are out there. So if they're able to find their consumer, I think he has a home run. Mhm.

Speaker 1 [04:02] Yeah, you know, in terms of the vibe, Jamie, you know, um, this feels like it belongs to a certain community. Um, can it go beyond that? Do you see it having potential to be a mainstream type of brand?

Speaker 6 [04:13] You know, I was just thinking about that looking at the packaging. I definitely place it in the country club, you know, kind of arena, um, I think with some tweaks it definitely could live beyond that, um, beyond the on premise and to retail, um, there's a lot happening on the pack right now that you kinda have to work through it feels more like, um, it came from the wine business, so there's definitely some storytelling happening on the package which I can appreciate which is great for. Um, on-premise kinds of accounts, but, um, going into retail, I think we definitely have to work a little bit to make it pop more.

Speaker 1 [04:48] OK, great feedback.