DRAFT Magazine

By Adam Tokarz

Located on the shore of Lake Huron in Tiverton, Ontario, Steelback Brewery is a small craft brewery dedicated to providing its imbibers with a premium Canadian beer at a premium price. But its award-winning Red Maple lager (a Gold Winner at the Ontario Brewing Awards, the maple lager is brewed traditionally with locally-sourced maple syrup for a smooth, creamy texture) only tells part of the story.

In 2008, Frank D’Angelo, then-CEO of Steelback and its avid, often-flamboyant pitchman, sold his share of the brewery to business partner Dr. Barry Sherman, billionaire owner of Apotex, Inc., Canada’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs. In turn, Dr. Sherman handed the reigns of his brewery to 24-year-old son Jonathon, a recent college graduate who studied industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia.

DRAFTMag.com caught up with Jonathon recently to discuss his portfolio of craft brews, Steelback’s new direction, and the challenges he’s faced as a young, unproven CEO in his first year at the helm.

DRAFTMag.com: All right, first things first. Give us your 30 second elevator pitch for Steelback beer.
Jonathon Sherman: Steelback is a new company. It was formed in May, 2008, and it’s a very small craft brewery in Ontario. All our craft brews are made by very traditional processes of brewing the beer. We’re a craft brewery that has won a number of different awards for quality of our beer, and our prices are pegged to the national brands, so we consider ourselves a craft brew for the everyday guy.

DM: Tell us a little bit about what makes your beer unique.
JS: Steelback has its own unique natural spring water source. We don’t have problems with filtering city water and that type of stuff. We pull our water right from the ground, treat it the way we want, and pull away or add minerals as we see fit. No one else can tap into our water source.

We’re also located in the country, so we can procure ingredients locally rather than have them shipped in from all over the place, using local buyers within 100 miles and locally-sourced food items. So that’s definitely been playing well for us.

DM: According to The Toronto Star, Frank D’Angelo is, “a man who breathed and lived fabulosity” and was coined “the consummate promoter.” He’s had energy drink companies, restaurants, even toured with his own rock band (Steelback 20-20). How has the face of Steelback changed since you’ve assumed the CEO position? What was/is your relationship with D’Angelo now?
JS: I guess I’ll answer the second part first. There’s no more association with Frank, the old owner. He’s no longer involved with the company at all from a marketing, ownership, or contributions perspective. And when he departed a couple years ago, we took six months to restructure the company. Everything was reviewed and really the only thing that remained with the old company was the name.

One of the common questions we get right now is, “Why didn’t we decide to change our name?” The reason we kept it is because there was so much history and so much done with the name Steelback, and so much money was spent in advertising. Now, the budget that was previously used by the old company for advertising is being greatly reduced, pretty much exclusively dedicated now for a sales team which goes door to door to bars, gets our beer on tap, and then sits there, talks to the regulars, educates them, and does a lot of sampling. Our new approach is basically, “One bar at a time.” Our approach from the beginning has been one-on-one education and really convincing people to become brand ambassadors.

DM: Has your craft beer portfolio changed?
JS: Yes. So there were a few brewmasters over time, and the brewmaster we kept from the old company [Jayne McGillivray], her background was more in quality control. In the six months of restructuring, she took her course for master brewing and is now an accredited beermaster. We also hired a consultant, a retired brewmaster, to help us reconfigure some of the equipment, tune up some of the recipes, and implement processes to standardize the whole brewing process. This way, we could abolish one of the flaws of the old company, which was inconsistency in the product.

We’ve streamlined the portfolio, so the old company was offering, I think, either 12 or 13 types of beer, many of which were competing against each other. What we did was limit them down to their unique different types, so now we have: one dark lager; one honey brown lager, which we call our premium draft, which is kind of like an easy-drinking, lager kind of beer for the summertime; a light, a 4 percent, low calorie beer; and we have our mainstream lager. And, once in awhile, we’ll come out with a specialty beer [like the Red Maple lager].

DM: So you’re in the midst of completely restructuring a national Canadian brewery to a quite different business model: a smaller, localized brewery with minimal advertising. What sorts of challenges have you faced as a young CEO?
JS: To put it to scale, we went from over 100 employees to a company of 10. In the beginning, I didn’t have much of a practical business background, so I surrounded myself with an experienced team. Like a very well learned CFO who I hired in for the first year to make sure that everything was being properly managed from a financial point of view. We’ve already discussed the fact that we brought in a retired veteran brewmaster to reconfigure the recipes because I could never go in there and say what they’re doing right off the bat. You learn from the people you surround yourself with.

Along with streamlining the number of beers that we offered, we also reviewed the packaging itself. In the past, there was plastic bottles, there were cans, and there were glass bottles. With twelve brands and three different package formats, it’s a lot of inventory to manage. So the new approach is to move exclusively to the brown glass bottles so the beer stays fresh as long as possible and there’s much less inventory to manage. We can now monitor it close enough so that it’s not sitting on the shelf longer than it should.

DM: Now, despite the different national and international accolades that Steelback’s garnered over the years, beer Web sites rate Steelback pretty low across the board. Do you feel the new Steelback (post-2008) should be held to its own rating standard?
JS: It’s part of the challenge that we’re dealing with, the old stigma of the company. A lot of the international Web sites probably don’t realize that we are a new company and haven’t tried the beer again, because… on the grand scale, Steelback is a relatively obscure, unknown brand. Locally, there are beer bloggers that have recognized the changes we’ve made and have started making comments on Web sites. But it all takes time. If you narrow the search to southern Ontario, beer-blog type reviews, you’ll see more positive reviews recently. Unfortunately, on the international scope, it’s hard for us in a single year to make people aware.

– Adam Tokarz is a Boston freelance writer who uses “Once, in a Blue Moon” to start all his debauchery-filled stories. He can be reached at adam.tokarz(at)gmail.com.

By Kristen Hampshire

DRAFTmag.com talks to Mark Reitman, PhD (professor of hot dogs) and owner of Hot Dog U., dubbed the Harvard of Encased Meat. Reitman talks about an average school day at Hot Dog U., how to dress a dog in any region, and what beverage goes best with dogs (raise your glass).

Why did you decide to start Hot Dog U? Talk to us about your vending resume and what inspired the Harvard of Encased Meats?
About seven years ago, I was in the business with my own cart and doing extremely well. We were set up in an outdoor mall called Prime Outlets in Kenosha, Wis., before they built their food court. I am an outdoor person, and I only worked the cart on weekends. It was a good business at the time. On Black Friday [the day after Thanksgiving], we would stock the cart with 1,000 dogs and as soon as we sold out, we’d go home to sleep. During a normal weekend, we had no problem selling 300 dogs a day at $3 a piece. People would ask if we were a franchise and how I got into the business, and I told them they needed to talk to me — and I kept a list of names. When the mall opened up the food court, I decided not to move indoors. Then I opened Hot Dog U.

I have a diverse background in retails sales, food service, and public education as a school counselor. So Hot Dog U. is a culmination of all the things I like to do. I’ve always been an educator and trainer.

Walk us through a typical ‘classroom’ experience at Hot Dog U.
We cover a complete curriculum in two days that includes marketing, selecting a location, insurance, every possible thing you consider when opening a business. The course includes a tour of the Vienna Beef Co. factory and a taste panel. We drive to a place that sells restaurant equipment that is not open to the public. We spend an hour there wandering around and looking at products they can use on their carts. We take a look at various types of carts, and then we wheel the cart I have used for years out in front of the Vienna factory and set it up. We take turns vending in half-hour shifts, and we also let people go inside and work the counter indoors like they would work in a real hot dog stand.

We do all the training at the Vienna Beef Co. headquarters in Chicago. Even though the class is operated here, it’s still a business school. I have been eating and selling Vienna hot dogs my entire life, so that is the palate I developed as a Chicago boy. But there are other regional hot dogs out there, so I want to make it clear that Hot Dog U. is not just limited to Chicago-style dogs; it’s for any encased meat that people want to sell off a cart.

How do hot dogs vary by region?
The original Chicago-style dog starts out on a steamed poppy seed bun, and it’s an all-beef dog that is either skinless or has natural casing. It has the following condiments in this order: mustard, neon-green relish, onions, a couple of tomato slices or wedges, kosher dill pickle, two ‘sport’ peppers, and a sprinkle of celery salt. There is never ketchup on a Chicago dog.

In New York City, they prepare their dogs in ‘dirty water,’ which means the dogs sit in the simmering water and there is a certain amount of spice and fat that bleeds into the water and makes the product taste better as the day goes on. They use a skinnier, longer dog with a natural casing. They’re topped with a red-onion sauce that we have never seen here in Chicago.

When you go to southern states, you’ll get a dog that’s a pork-beef blend and they’ll dress them with chili, onions, and cheese or sometimes chili, onions, coleslaw, and mustard.

It gets better out west. And that’s where you get the cream cheese and onions. They do some things with dogs that you would make faces at, but they’re good.

Tell us about some of the successful ‘graduates’ of Hot Dog U.
There’s Dan Council. His cart is called Red Hot Dogs in Lodi on Lake Wisconsin. On weekends, he brings a cart out on his boat and sells lots of hot dogs to boaters. I had two students from Troy, N.Y., that were on the front page of BusinessWeek. Their stand is Nipper’s Hot Dogs. Biker Jim in Denver, Colo., is a friend with a cart very similar to mine. He does exotic game like bison and buffalo. And what I love is he has a special caulking gun, so he caulks his ‘dogs with cream cheese and grilled onions. It’s phenomenal.

What do many hot dog vendors do wrong?
What’s most important is the location and selecting that based on foot traffic. People in cars aren’t going to slam on their brakes to get a hot dog. Also, I’ve always believed in a one-ingredient restaurant. Hot dogs are a mobile food where you’re walking and eating — and you only have two hands. Therefore, we only sold cans of pop and hot dogs. Not chips. When you sell chips, the customer deals with a balancing act and they can’t eat the dog.

What type of beer goes best with a hot dog?
A beer that’s chilled cold and out of a tap with a nice head on it. My wife and I are big beer aficionados — we live in Wisconsin.

Ever vend ‘dogs at a brew fest?
I vended twice in front of the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee on St Patrick’s Day. It was great. They gave brewery tours every half hour and there was no food in the facility. So from noon until 3 p.m., I had my cart parked out front and I picked up half of the people who went on each tour. There were 50 people per tour. If there was any way we could sell beer from a hot dog cart, I would. But you have to self-contain a beer garden area because people can’t walk around with open containers

Hot dogs and beer are a natural.

Kristen Hampshire is a freelance writer based in Bay Village, Ohio.

In our first Q&A on DRAFTMag.com, we talk with Craft Beer Radio’s Jeff Bearer about the four-year run of his show, his plans for the future, and drinking great beer.

Can you tell me a little bit about Craft Beer Radio?
I discovered podcasts in March of 2005. It was a couple months before iTunes added it and you had to get extra software to get to it, but I thought it was the coolest thing because you could get good talk radio on whatever topic you wanted. You could listen to it wherever and whenever you wanted. That really resonated with me.

Being into beer, I looked around for craft beer podcasts. There were a few out there — and some of them are still doing it today like Good Beer Show, which was probably the first — but that was an exception. I found that a lot of the beer podcasts weren’t what I was looking for or they didn’t know what they were talking about. There were times when I found myself screaming at my radio because they weren’t putting out accurate information. There were many that I couldn’t listen to because they were just drunk fests. I got to thinking that maybe I could do a beer podcast and do a better job at it. I asked my buddy Greg [Weiss] and we put out our first show June 3, 2005.

How has the show changed since you started?
I think the biggest thing that’s changed is the amount of prep work I put in. When I first started doing the show, I was spending between 20 and up to 40 hours a week prepping and doing research for the show. Since then, I’ve had a kid and haven’t been putting as much time into the show.

We’ve done different segments here and there. We used to do a listener participation/trivia contest called “what beer am I?” We kind of ran out of good ideas. It was written in the ever-clever first person from the beer’s point of view. It was fun for a while and it just kind of fizzled out. We used to always prepare what happened in beer news and listener emails, but those two things fizzled when I had the baby and I didn’t have as much time to dedicate to the show.

As far as the beer content goes, we’ve definitely learned a lot more about beer. I was a beer geek coming in. Greg wasn’t. He was more of a newborn when he started, so listeners have heard most of his education happen on the show.

What is your listenship look like in terms of numbers?
We are close to 3,000 listeners per show.

When you started this four years ago, did you think it would last this long?
That’s a good question. Once it got started and we got the first 15 or 20 under our belt, then I can definitely say I’m not surprised it lasted this long. When we were doing our first one or two, I didn’t even know if I could do a good show. If I couldn’t, I wasn’t going to keep doing it, but it turned out we put something together that a lot of people like.

How much longer can you keep producing the show?
The way we do the show now is that Greg and I get together and pick some beers. We still try to stick to a style- or a theme-based show. The next one we’ll be putting up is a bunch of beers all from Australia. It doesn’t take all that much planning, and it’s not like we’re going to run out of craft beer anytime soon. I hate to say this because it sounds like we’re really letting the show go, but we’re really on autopilot. I’m not spending any time looking for advertisers and I’m not spending time compiling the news segments anymore. It’s pretty self-sustaining. As long as I find enough time to edit the show and post it, we can keep doing it. That’s not too much of a drain on me.

Do you have any favorite shows?
When we’re doing the show, Greg and I have come up with the First Law of Craft Beer Radio: the quality of the show is directly proportional to the quality of the beers. Maybe it’s just worked for Greg and I, but when we can really enjoy what we’re drinking, it just feels like we’ve hit a home run. I don’t know whether that carries through for people who are listening, but I’m sure our excitement makes the show more enjoyable to a degree.

I just got back from Philly Beer Week and I did a whole bunch of stuff there. I’m pretty proud of most of the interviews I did there, mostly because in the past, I haven’t been very good at interviewing people. I’ve always felt that I had decent questions, but asking them, especially if they are hardball questions, I hadn’t been that good at. I was proud of the work this year, however.

Any beers you want to have on the show?
Isabelle Proximus is a beer that I’ve only had the tiniest sample of and it wasn’t in an environment where I could really evaluate it. That’s one beer we’d like to try because it has such a beer geek buzz.

I save all the best beers on the wall behind my bar and I’m looking at them now. We’ve done some of the world-class stuff. I’m looking at the Dark Lord. We have a bottle of Utopia sitting over there. A lot of the beers that would be sitting on your average person’s beer list, we’ve been lucky enough to try, mostly because our listeners have sent us samples.

This is an interesting thing that I hadn’t anticipated. Yes, we get beer from breweries on occasion, but we get by far more beers in the mail from listeners who want to showcase their local breweries. We get people who send us Wisconsin beers or Michigan beers, and we’ve done several shows where we’ve done state spotlights.

You have a “Donate” button on the site. Does that pay for your expenses?
No, it doesn’t cover everything. We do have a fair amount of listeners who subscribe on a recurring basis, paying $2 a month or $4 a month. It gives us some good income. It doesn’t pay for all the beer that we drink and the trips, like going to Savor and The Great American Beer Fest. I’ve kind of been wanting to promote that more because if we drew attention to it, more people might be happy to donate. Greg doesn’t. He thinks that we shouldn’t ask for money. It’s kind of an internal battle that we have to figure out where we stand. We do appreciate every dollar that people send to us. We don’t want to make it a pay only one and we’re not going to, but it definitely helps.

– Noah Davis is editor of DRAFTMag.com.