Brewbound Pitch Slam 14: Semi-Finals - Rincon Reservation Road Brewery

Speaker 1 [00:24] Let's move on. Up next, we have Rick Mazzetti, who's the chairman of Rincon Reservation Road Brewery, AKA ThreeR Brewery. Come on up. Your microphone, please keep an eye on your timer.

Speaker 2 [00:40] Thank you. Thank you guys so much for letting us come out and be a part of this. First and foremost, we'd like to thank you from our tribe, Rincon Indian Reservation, a band of Laseno Indians. So we started this process to actually try and grab a hold of the divers diversification project for us being a tribe and being the most underserved as a minority, we jumped into the, to the, to the beer space and. Actually, it was kind of tough getting it on and but through perseverance and actually being resilient, which is one of the things that Indians are known for, we don't give up. We're not the smartest, but we don't give up. But anyway, so going through that, we were actually able to create our brand and, and do proper things with proper ingredients, being that we utilize our own water from our aquifer. We're actually right now looking into a property to grow our own hops for certain beers to try and Become 100% green. Um, and that's actually working out pretty good so far. The product in which we, we've presented today, there's several. We have about 13 core beers, and we're actually still in the self-distributing mode. Um, so far we've gotten into, uh, San Diego Zoo, we've gotten into, uh, the Wild Animal Park, Disneyland, um, some of the bigger, uh, chains. But right now, our biggest thing is we need to actually reach out and be, you know, have someone help us distribute. But for us, when we started this thing, it was because of the fact that we wanted to have some type of a cultural bridge for people on the outside to come in to know us as a tribe to sit down with us and have a beer. The good thing is, is we've gotten so much feedback at, um, our breweries and we also have a tasting room off of the reservation. We're the only 100% owned and operated on a tribal entity. So that was another big stone for us. So that's our big pitch right now. So thank you guys so much. God bless.

Speaker 1 [02:45] All right, well done. Um, Rich, you know, I think last year a lot of people really loved your beer. They also really loved your story, you know, what do you think about the story of Rincon?

Speaker 3 [02:55] I mean, it's a great story. I guess I would want to see more like through like their marketing channels about how they, uh, explain just like, like Native American styled beer and just like 100% green and like the efforts behind it, but, um, with them landing like such large accounts, there's obviously a good story there. I just wanna kind of dive deeper into it to learn more about the, uh. Loiseno Indians reservation and just the history behind those people. Mhm,

Speaker 1 [03:22] um, you know, getting from that, that bridge that, uh, Rick was talking about getting people to learn about the tribe, learn about Rincon through their beer, the beer's gotta be great, right? Jamie, what do you think of the product? What do you think of the liquid?

Speaker 4 [03:33] I thought it was really good. Um, I thought it was really interesting. Some of the ingredients are, are certainly ones that, um. Have a story of their own like right and so you know, similarly I just would wanna understand more of how the whole story connects um I think there's just some opportunity to have more depth there, but I thought the beers that we tasted this morning were really good.

Speaker 1 [03:57] And just, you know, following up on that, you know, front of pack, that's how a lot of people learn about a beer or a brand. Um, what did you see on the front of pack that you'd like? Um, are there any things that you might adjust, change?

Speaker 5 [04:09] I like the brand blocking. Um, it was, I would call out the ingredients a little more, maybe the styles a little bit more. They're at the bottom, they're a little difficult to read, um, but overall, I, you know, it's very cohesive, and I think it, it tells a good brand story.

Speaker 1 [04:22] Yeah, and again, you know, that brand story is a big part of scaling. I mean, what do you think that the scaling potential for Rincon, Ryan?

Speaker 6 [04:29] Yeah, I think it's about getting your marketing out there. I think it's a really, it's hard to do something unique in craft beer right now. I think you're doing it. I think it's a matter of getting that story out and finding that consumer connection, um, and scaling it from there.

Speaker 1 [04:39] Yeah, what do you think of the beer?

Speaker 6 [04:41] I thought it was really good. Um, I like the blueberry Cezanne, which you don't see blueberry beer, much less Cezanne's very often. Um, I'm not sure how much you can scale a Cezanne, but I love the style.

Speaker 1 [04:49] Yeah, all right, great feedback. Let's move on.