Katie Hill - Riding the Craft Brewery Roller Coaster

On this episode, we’re joined by Katie Hill, the longtime marketing leader at Upslope Brewing - Boulder’s outdoors-first craft brewery known for cans-only packaging, community-driven events, and a “beer, people, planet” ethos. 

Katie has spent the last decade steering Upslope through the craft beer roller coaster, widening the aperture beyond beer while protecting the brand’s core identity.

With deep experience across portfolio strategy, taproom-to-retail activation, and cause-led community building, Katie offers a practical perspective on what it takes to keep a 2008-era craft brand fresh in 2025.

Katie unpacks the next decade in craft brewing (beer, NA, and beyond), why Upslope went hard on Hard Yerba Mate, and how they launched a hop-boosted IPA using BevBoost widget tech that releases a fresh burst of hop aroma at crack. We dig into the taproom + retail flywheel and how she’d approach starting a new brand today.

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Episode Highlights:

🏔️ Upslope’s “après everything” positioning
🎢 What the craft beer roller coaster taught the team
🔭 The next 10 years
🎯 Widening the aperture without losing the core brand
🍋 Why Hard Yerba Mate (5% ABV) fits the outdoor occasion
🧊 Hard seltzer lessons from Spiked Snowmelt
🧪 Hop-Boosted IPA with BevBoost: telling a “tech” story in beer
🏪 The taproom <> retail flywheel that converts trial to velocity
📣 Lean, repeatable, community-first field marketing plays
🚀 If starting a craft brand today: formats, occasions, and white space
👀 Trends Katie’s watching across craft and adjacent categories

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Table of Contents:

00:46:07 - Origin story
03:49:18 - The craft beer roller coaster
06:15:09 - The next 10 years in craft brewing
07:52:00 - Widening the aperture
10:57:08 - Hard Yerba Mate
14:48:16 - Hard seltzer
16:20:24 - The hop boosted IPA, BevBoost tech
21:08:08 - The tap house <> retail flywheel
24:16:10 - Getting scrappy, lean marketing strategy
29:07:16 - If Katie was starting a brand in the craft brewery space
30:38:21 - Brands and/or trends Katie is watching

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Links:

Upslope Brewing - https://upslopebrewing.com
Follow Katie on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/khill29/
Follow me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/ 

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.

Transcript

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welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with Katie Hill who is the director of marketing at Upslope Brewery Brewing a Boulder based craft brewery started in 2008 in the depths of the recession that since has become one of Colorado's largest independent breweries and between upslope and her previous journey at Sweetwater Brewing Katie definitely has has been in the craft brewery space for a while almost two decades or so so she definitely knows the space really well so excited to learn more from her but um yeah with that let's jump into it I think maybe Katie just for first off listeners that aren't all that familiar with upslope maybe just yeah give us quick lay the land in terms of origin story why behind the brand why initially started and then we'll go from there yeah so you said it um we are a Boulder based brewery through and through Colorado is swarmed with breweries as most listeners might know I joined Upslope's journey in 2013 so they had five years under their belt they were kind of right there at the right time um during that craft brewery boom in the area but um wrong time economically speaking in 2,008 and there I think there was a hop shortage at the time when they started so they definitely um they had no shortage of trials and tribulations ahead of my arrival um and I had come from Sweetwater Brewing Company in Atlanta and so yeah we just sort of we hit it off everybody was sort of there for the same reasons right Colorado's beautiful active outdoor lifestyle trying to have a good time in the beautiful backyard that we call home and so upslope was started as an all can brewery which was very unique at the time Oscar Blues which is known for their Dales Pale Ale was was really a pioneer in the craft space for that and upslope was right there next to them I want to say we actually had the first we were one of the first IPAs actually in a can in the craft space so yeah I mean it was sort of started by three guys with a shared adventure for the outdoors and Matt Cutter the original founder and president just you know he's a homebrewer and he was like I'd like to take really awesome beers out into the back country and so that's where that all can mentality came from and yeah so we're now kind of known as this Oprah everything brewery which for anyone that doesn't know what the term Opry or Opry however people want to pronounce it that just means after so we're kind of you know cap off any adventure with a good beer so that's really what our founders started out to do is make some really good beer to celebrate you know whatever adventure they had been doing that day I love that and then you guys have I think two tap houses or breweries in Colorado Boulder area and then are you guys sold in a bunch of other you know off premises locations in and outside of Colorado too I assume yeah quite the distribution footprint these days actually I know you asked like where can people find us so Rocky Mountain West is sort of where we're at we also are randomly in Florida I happen to be from Florida but that is not why we all are also distributed there but yeah so there's eight states that we are sold in and then locally we are in all sorts of you know your big box stores down to the independent liquor stores and on and off premise is sort of a that's that's where you can find us yeah perfect that's great that's great overview the craft brewery space has seems to have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride over the past decade is maybe a good way to put it which is a lot of UPS and downs so I'm curious you know with all your experience in the space of the past almost two decades if you kind of had to lay out what were the key phases of of the category over the past let's just say 15 years or so in a rough timeline you can just call out some of the big phases you don't have to get too specific but what would that look like yeah so you say roller coaster which is very accurate we often say strap to a rocket ship because it's been really really crazy um and fast but roller coasters more uh appropriate these days because it really has been up and down so I would say when upslope first started and when I first started it was just an incredible boom pretty much everybody you knew knew somebody who had a brewery you know and so that was really cool that was when everyone was getting involved The Great American Beer Fest was like the coolest thing to attend and and still is a really awesome event and just pretty much yeah everybody was getting into it then I would say you started to see I wouldn't know how to tell you how many years ago it was'cause it's it's one big blur and a fun ride that it's been but yeah then there was some consolidation some of the big boys were starting to get like a little bit you know the toes were being stepped on so they're like well how can we get in on this on the craft scene so then I think you saw all these independents springing up and then you saw the big guys trying to come in and kind of do some consolidation and pick them up and and do that to diversify their portfolio so you had a lot of that and then then you saw some trickling out I think you know the Independent Craft Brewers seal was kind of created by the Brewers Association not long after that stuff was happening so that the consumer could be educated on like who really was craft you know and then before you knew it here comes the the pandemic and that was just like totally crazy in every sense of the word we were actually so fortunate that it was a busy time for us and you know I think you can remember everyone was sort of drinking at any given time in the day during Covid right wrong or otherwise that was sort of going on and then people were were having to sort of lean on comfort brands as we called it so like there was less experimentation on the customer side and more of like you know this is a scary time so let me go with what I know and then you weren't like out there shopping and all that and you certainly weren't on the on premises so yeah so now we're back in the time of post covid right where everyone's sort of putting more more of an emphasis on their health and well being and mental health has come into the forefront which is a great thing but that has changed people's drinking patterns and that's very much affected our business and our industry so that would be the roller coaster and right now I think because everyone's sort of not drinking as much you're gonna start to see some more consolidation I think in beverage houses for strength of brand because um it's just getting tough out there yeah if you and patterns you've seen over the past decade and a half or so if you had a crystal ball what what do you think the space will look like 10 years from now let's say oh my god first of all I would love a crystal ball if anyone is selling them um knows where they're located that would be awesome I think that's a million dollar question if I had to guess I actually feel I feel pretty confident that we're gonna see some like sick local activity I think ultimately like yeah you know I do I do love that people are focusing on their health and well being and certainly the mental health aspect that I mentioned but I do think that things are gonna come back people are gonna get back into patterns I think when there's like economic recessions you know a lot of a lot of industries have to brace for impact and so does craft a little bit but ultimately people like to celebrate with alcohol for certain occasions and I don't know I just think we're gonna see I think we're gonna see a resurgence of people wanting to have that like bespoke and handcrafted feeling come back to things that they're purchasing but for for now I'm seeing like bigger brands making making more headway and like you gotta kind of get in where you fit in and hunker down to get through what's happening right now it's getting a little homogenized maybe um but I do think we're gonna see it swing back to where people are excited for handcrafted really cool unique flavors and and cool concepts and honestly maybe a healthier way to unwind and you've seen the na situation just booming so the non alc is is kind of where it's at right now and functional beverages so I think it's gonna be all over the map like it has been but I do think we're gonna kind of swing back I think in those more recent years you guys have put a bit more of a a focus on I think you put it when we chatted a few weeks ago in terms of like widening the aperture is how you put it and becoming more of a general beverage house what does this look like and what kind of new products are you guys focusing on these days yeah that that has been something that we've had to work on to be honest I mean um a few even right before Covid hit actually is when we were developing our hard Seltzer that was sort of when White Claw White Claw was seeing like this huge boom and it was it was new on the scene and everyone was kind of familiar with like a Lacroix or a you know a Seltzer water but to add that alcohol and flavored component was cool for people to see and so we sort of jumped on that I'm reverse engineered some stuff and came out with a hell of a spiked snow melt craft hard seltzers as we call it and it's still thriving to this day and then just kind of looking around and seeing like the trends in beer and in and out in the Bev ALC space we're like alright well what else are people doing and you kind of can't be one trick pony anymore um or else people are gonna move on to the next thing and as a smaller independent scrappier brewery uh we don't have a ton of the money that you know we can just continue to get eyeballs on the brand so we have to just figure out ways to get people pumped on us and kind of go where the fish are so that was where Spike Snow Melt was born and then when we talk about just wanting to kind of be a one stop shop for people in an all all beverage beverage house we've introduced some a non alcoholic to our line um like I said we have the Craft Hard Seltzer Spike Snow Melt which is gluten free um we also just it kind of came out with this awesome thing called Hard Yerba Mate which is really fun and has been exciting for the brand and we also had one blip in time a ready to drink cocktail that was based on our because licensing is what it is we can't have spirits or we could we just don't have the licensing I suppose but um we had a a beverage that was doing that for us so yeah we really have something for everybody we actually did a campaign around it this summer and we continue to have that campaign going right now called Trail Mix so we kind of say like this is our trail mix and whatever your adventure there's an upslope for that so you know you might not be a big beer drinker but we've got these other offerings for you and then on top of it in our beer lineup I would I would argue we really do have something for everybody at any given time our beer calendar is pretty stacked and so you know if you like light loggers we got that if you like a fruited sour we've got that um if you want a pumpkin ale or an oatmeal stout in the colder winter months we've got that so yeah I mean that was something we had to do just to stay as relevant as possible and give people what they want you know we could have just said you know what no we're a craft brewery and our guys don't and gals don't want to be manufacturing anything like that sugar water right that that that Seltzer and like you know what that that sugar water that Seltzer has done really really well for us so I think everyone's pretty pumped that we chose that path to just sort of give people what they wanted that's great that's awesome you mentioned the um the Yerba mate product line what the formulation and kind of production process looks like and did it take some iteration and tweaking in a firmament R&D or is it pretty easy and yeah curious what the response from the consumers has been as well it's quite easy for me to say it was pretty easy but our our brewers and R&D team um might might disagree but cool enough when we made our spiked snow melt craft hard Seltzer that a lot of times we get asked like what's the alcohol is it vodka is it you know it's like no it's actually fermented cane sugar and that's where that alcohol is coming from so the fact that we already have that as a base is kind of what LED to that RTD that I mentioned a moment ago that we no longer really really pedal but now that is what open the door to like what else could you do with that base you know it's a very clean base from an alcohol perspective and it it lends itself to a nice note of sweetness and then flavor profiles do really well with it so Danny Page is one of our founders and he's originally from Argentina so there's where that yerba mate comes into play he's always walking around the brewery with his little gourd and the silver straw and pouring his hot water over the pure leaf mate and anyone who's had the tall yellow can that everyone knows about knows that gets you where you wanna go from a caffeine perspective and it's just a really big part of Danny's culture um and so he was just like why shouldn't we make one of these as a hard version and then of course everyone's probably familiar with Twisted Tea um you know and this is that awesome opportunity to make a craft version that's that's a bit better for you the ingredients are much more hand selected and we're discerning with that it's a unique flavor profile ours is made with a lemon as the main flavor so it's a bit of our like Argentine Arnold Palmer as we call it nice you can't call it that cause that's a brand and a person but that's our like internal thing that we like to say but really the the drive behind it was to really put our to put our money where our mouth was about that widening the aperture and being a beverage house like let's try fun stuff let's see what people are liking and give people a trade up opportunity from things like Twisted Tea you know just give like like if that's already winning there's gotta be room for a few more people to play in that space totally and the reception's been pretty darn great we kind of do these pop up adult like lemonade stands um but they're hard yerba mate and people get quite a kick out of that a lot of people don't know how to pronounce it or what the heck we're even talking about um but yerba mate is just the name of that um South American tea which has naturally occurring caffeine um so we steep that pure leaf mate and then real lemons and little sweetener uh back sweetened with sugar um so yeah I mean it's it's it's doing what we want it to do it's making people want more in the hot dog days of summer at the beer festivals and lots of people come into the taproom mid afternoon for their uh you know their pick me up cause we work in our taproom is in an office park so we have a lot of people like stop by and they're like just gonna grab a quick hard your mate there you go so it's been it's been well received and it's a bit of a slow burn cause we're a smaller brand and you know Twisted Tea is on every commercial during game days and all that but this is sort of our answer to that so people have an opportunity for a craft version sounds much more interesting than Twisted Tea LC you you touch on the the hard Seltzer a bit too I think you guys have become like one of the only independent craft Seltzer producers in Colorado that's really secured secured a foothold I imagine that's probably potentially setting the stage and continue expanding out outside of Colorado with with with that product line and you know competing it's White Claw and high Noon and and what not what have you guys found like has been key to succeeding as an independent operator in the space where others have failed or at least have not seen as much success as as upslope yeah to be honest we are really thrilled to say that we still have our Seltzer and it's still going strong sort of the little engine that could I mean everyone came out with one and then really like the shakeout was there and we we maintained our foothold there and we've got several different offerings of it we've got one that's got an electrolyte blend in it which I think was a nice competitive advantage from anything that had been seen at the time personally I think the the secret sauce for us was the liquid it was a superior product in my opinion and obviously the consumers in that it was lightly carbonated lightly flavored real ingredients unique flavor combinations and it wasn't leaving you with this gut bomb or like too cloying and sweet I think the name was really spot on too calling it spiked snow melt I think people we're really like OK that sounds cool I know what that might taste like it gives you a feeling I think the packaging we nailed right out of the gate and we did that all in house so that was that was fun to take on that project yeah I think ultimately though the liquid's really doing the talking it's certainly a David and Goliath story anytime you bring up little all UPS open a white claw right but the fact that we're hanging tough with our distributors and we are really getting a foothold still in some out of state markets too is really cool that's great so yeah I think the Liquid's been doing the talking for us that's awesome that's great you mentioned a bit when you shattered a few weeks ago give me the lowdown here how this idea came about and yeah what's the R&D formulation process look like on this front so that one's super exciting honestly I can't even believe we launched it I've been at the company for 12 years and for at least six of those 12 years our owner would be in our new product development meetings and he would he would be like what if we could have like a widget inside of a can that released hops and everyone's like yeah yeah anyway let's talk about stuff we could do you know what I mean like he was sort of it was sort of a pipe dream of his yeah I mean he had it on his whiteboard pop widget for like six years and I'll be damned if he didn't figure it out and we're so excited to be the first brewery and brand in the beverage space to be able to use this technology so basically the thought came about when like you know when you open a Guinness out of a can that's got a little like ping pong ball style widget that when you change the pressure by opening the can releases nitrogen which gives it that draft pour that on nitrogen you're used to with Guinness so taking that idea Bev Boost our owner Matt Cutter founded Bev Boost also hence why we get to be the lucky Guinea pig to use it first cause we have the same founder he created with Boulder Engineering Studios a prototype and it's like a little a little plastic bobber thing basically and when you it when you open that can there's a pinhole that allows it to notice that the pressure is changed and it flings open the top and so in that chamber and it's a dual chamber the inner chamber is holding hop oil extracts in this case and so as soon as you change that pressure by opening the can it releases that hop oil and you're basically getting the freshest IPA possible in a can ever to date wow I'm sure people from the Pacific Northwest are very familiar with like a wet hop or a fresh hop this goes this goes above and beyond in delivering the freshest hop experience possible it also has some neat beyond the freshness and flavor and aroma that it can impart it actually has a neat uh upside of you know extending shelf life maybe and that's helpful to retailers and distributors for sure and it's great for the customer too because you never you know most people aren't checking dates on the bottom of cans like they should and in the case of this hops do degrade in like two weeks time a really fresh hop is going to be doled over time just by being in that liquid so it's a pretty cool concept and we get to be the first to try it and really the sky's the limit on that technology so we're just pumped to be next to it I mean anything that you can put in that widget can be expelled into the product as long as it's in like an aqueous based you know solution or has a has a way of infusing so yeah you know you think about like lime in a Corona you think about mint oil in a mojito or THC CBD um adaptogens all sorts of things so our first foray was like let's we're a brewery first and foremost let's do the let's do the beer thing but I I think the sweet spot has yet to be seen I think there's all sorts of cool applications for this so yeah we're pumped it just launched in like June and it's blown our expectations out of the water I think people are just excited to see something innovative and cool you know everyone's seen the Guinness widget and so this is like a new opportunity and it's our own proprietary situation for now and um yeah people are pumped on that innovative item I don't think anything this cool has happened since you know you've seen like the the mountains turn blue on a course can or right the twisted kind of vortex pour but those aren't changing the experience the way that this one does so yeah we are really excited to have something this cool is anyone else doing this in in the market in this way no so we're the only brand doing it right now um and Bev Boost owns the technology and is now starting to because you basically need the inline filler and dropper to go into your can it's a two prong approach like you don't just buy this and drop it in your can you know it's it's got some um production implications in a big way so Bev Boost is now gonna kind of farm this out to other brands who want to experiment experiment with this I think they've got the attention of some pretty big brands globally too so it's just really exciting that we get a chance to to put it to test first totally so hopefully that's awesome super excited one day yeah and hopefully one day you'll see like a boosted cooler door or something and then that way everything in that door will be you know having this technology but for now it's just us seem like it's definitely a trend that could catch on and it could be become like the standard and shifting gears a bit um I think like a lot of craft breweries like like upslope have a few tap houses that customers can visit strategies you focus on that help maximize that flywheel to a certain extent like customers experiencing the brand at upslope taphouses product at some other off premise location and and vice versa like I'm kind of curious I mean there's no better place to kind of immerse yourself in the brand and understand who we are than at our house right at our tap room so and it's also pretty common in the biz that on premise drives off right like you're gonna spend six bucks on your beer before you're gonna buy a 12 pack right so I think very much so that is the number one most important part of the marketing arm that we have control over 100% it's where you can really understand a feeling and A&A culture and a vibe so we don't for example for the longest time we didn't even have access to a television in our tap room because we are that active outdoor lifestyle brand and we want people to kind of come in and unplug and talk to your neighbor talk to the dude that you hear talking about your favorite football team over there and the gal over there talking about whatever right so we want people to engage with each other in there and and tell their stories of whatever they've done that day so for the longest time we didn't have that now we have like a an opportunity to show you know a CU football game or a Broncos game or something just cause people finally beat it out of us but ultimately it's just it's the way we leverage that space is just making sure that it tells our story the best way possible and that we're always delivering the best customer service and the beer is always the freshest that you can possibly find and just creating that sense of community that's a big deal for us we're also a certified B Corp so getting to know our community is really Paramount being a good steward of the community too and so hosting bike riding events or river clean up post parties or even us donating to those if they can't come to us working with our local mountain Aldora Mountain Resort up in Ned and making sure that their pre pass party is happening down at our location so really just leveraging that the space is there and you don't need much more than the people and a little bit of the social lubricant to to make the magic happen and I think again customer service is just Paramount down there and then you know when you then go into the on premise we have all sorts of partners obviously in the accounts when we're sold on tap and just that's then hopefully another experiential touch point for the customer the beer should be just as good their time should be just as awesome so yeah we're just all about that social gathering moment and then you know we have tap room events all the time right from from a bingo night to an upcoming dogapalooza and we've got a backcountry tap room that we do that's not actually on site but then gets to be put up on a mountaintop in the Winter Park area so we really just try to expand the touch points for that experiential feeling yeah totally on that front especially focusing on the experiential stuff which I know is a big focus of yours the cool core tools in your tool belt you know scrappy craft brewery and and what have you found can be but potentially have the highest impact oh man I would say partners community and partners that has been huge I mean right when I started that was already something upslope was doing really well which I thought was really cool so you know Outdoor Partners again if you're saying that you're into skiing and climbing and all of the outdoor things that people and music also we wanted to get next to that stuff you know in an authentic way and pretty much everyone that we work with is similar to us we all live in Colorado and we have a lot of the same interests and hobbies and so it was just so authentic and natural to amplify the brand and the message for both people the fit was there you know we don't just work with anybody but luckily we you can just find someone that's like you in this state would just turn it around you know everyone's really kind of here for the same reasons and so I would say partners just hands down has been helpful to amplify the message and get people aware and we're all about liquid delips right half the breweries in the state would claim that they're the active outdoor lifestyle brewery right so I mean how do you maintain authenticity in that and it's not that hard cause you you don't have to fake it in our case you know you just sort of you get with the right people and that that's just the magic happens there um and then you've got all those word of mouth kind of brand ambassadors that are that are there to be like oh you guys should work with up soap they're awesome they they gave a bunch of uh beard of my climbing competition or I did a river cleanup with Leave No Trace and and I I got a bunch of craft logger at the end and it was what you know what I looked forward to the most and we also used to work with Trout Unlimited we've worked with protect our winters leave No Trace we've worked with super super small local non profits with kids programming and done all sorts of like clean UPS trail building all of that so I would say that's been a huge deal for us other just like low low lift high reward things would be engaging with the partners that we have that aren't necessarily the like the the community side but like the real business side of it like I work on sponsorships all the time so you're talking about mountain resorts I mean they're partners too but they're they're kind of that's not a low lift you know that takes money and energy and and lots of marketing coordination with the teams but I think then you're once you've established it you're plug and play so you're talking music fests or mountain resorts or venues are very are very impactful for us and once you've got that turned on it doesn't take a whole lot to turn up the volume usually so I would say that's really impactful too what else yeah I mean the tap rooms again super awesome yeah totally and brand ambassadors too and I think you and I talked like our packaging is pretty darn simple and in fact it has not changed from a can perspective since I've been there which is not a normal thing for somebody to say in 12 years especially in a competitive industry like I'm in but I think that that's actually worked to our advantage that it stayed so simple and true to what it who we are and what it ever was is we're just not trying to be someone we're not you know yeah I think customers kind of sniff that out and there's something to be said about the simplicity and the approachability cause man you talk about the roller coaster ride that craft has been on there was a time where it could be a little off putting or pretentious for people because they didn't know like it was getting kind of like wine you know and and it's super nuanced not saying it's not but I think ultimately that can be scary for people if they're like why don't taste those notes that you're talking about or I don't know what the yeast is doing to this particular one or the hops and so I think for us it's always been no pretense kind of check your ego at the door come as you are and we've got something for everybody and also not to be too aspirational either with the outdoorsiness that can be off putting too I think and we're not expecting you to climb a fourteener which is you know the mountains at 14,000 feet for anyone listening who who wouldn't know that but yeah we don't expect you to be like the craziest rock climber on earth I mean whatever your small victories and adventures are like we we have a a beer for you and um think that it should be celebrated so I think that's yeah that's we've been true to ourselves and making sure people feel welcome and then when they have that positive experience that they can they can replicate it in their own setting when they then go get into the off prem which I think is that's what's kept me there for so long it's just it's what you see is what you get and it's always really really good beer so and a great yes totally that makes a lot of sense if you were starting a new brand in this let's just say broader craft brewery space and this could be my first question is like what category would you focus on you know whether it be beer cider Seltzer maybe you'd start a craft brewery just focus on Hard Hibermate yeah like what what category would you focus on and maybe it'd be a kind of what you guys are doing now which is a general beverage house but yeah like I could take that a few different ways like if it's if you're talking about personally but if I wanted to be the most successful in my business and in my craft I would probably try to keep a diversified lineup because again I I personally love that about upslope and myself like I just I want to be as inclusive as possible like you know come as you are like I said and so whatever you're coming to the table with in terms of your interest I would like to be able to kind of satisfy that so yeah I mean in a perfect world you would you would hone in on a craft and just be the best at that one thing but I do think there's something to be said about keeping your keeping the variety is the spice of life vibe totally so I think I would probably stay a little bit how up so pass like some do some do a few styles of beer fantastic we haven't done a cider so that's kind of a cool idea and ciders are kind of seeing a little pop right now so yeah I think I would keep it open I think that makes sense yeah I think that makes a lot of sense yeah you definitely know the space the space very well just taking a bit of a step back you know outside of this craft brewery space I know you just know CPG pretty well like any brands or just trends in the CPG space in general that you've been tracking are particularly excited about lately man that that's a super tough one I am just fascinated anytime I go into a grocery store and just see what new stuff is hitting a shelf and what new tactics people are trying and I think it's a fun space ultimately in general nothing's like hitting me on the top of the head right now I will say one thing that was the craziest thing I had seen recently which is pretty perfect because it's in line with the hot boosted IPA is this uh beverage called Karma Water I don't know if you're familiar with no I haven't heard that effectively it looks like a regular bottle of water and this is not a bottle of water this is my water bottle but it's got like a plastic chunk at the top that's got powder in it so it'll have like a vitamin blend or electrolyte or whatever that's good for you right it's a functional beverage and this little piece at the top you just push down on it and it integrates into your water bottle which is really wild to me because it was coming it was brought to my attention as we were coming online pretty soon with the Hot Boosted and I was like wow that's a really similar concept and that you're at the time of consumption is when you're getting the freshest benefit right so I thought that was really cool I had not seen that and you know how do you reinvent the wheel with water right and someone just did so I think that's really cool I think mostly I as someone in marketing I mean I find myself wearing a ton of different hats at the brewery but I'm technically our marketing director so I obviously do pay attention to packaging formats and and design so being that we haven't had a lot of crazy times experimenting with our art I think that catches my eye quite a bit not just in the beer space I just think it's fun to see what people do um I mean even like lays potato chips they do such cool things with flavor profiles like weird combinations that you wouldn't think of and you know they're finding ways to reinvent themselves and and have me talking about them you know and they have like a Sriracha something or other but then they have weird stuff that's like dill pickle but it gets even weirder than that and then they have contests that involve their their fan base and then you get to vote and all that so I think stuff like that's really fun to like look at an entire CPG scenario and then try to take what you see working in some some other area for yourself is is fun but yeah I just awesome I'm sort of blanking on what they've been but like it's just insane oh I mean you know there was like a mustard beer at one point oh yeah with Heinz and there's been like a hot dog thing with Oscar Meyer I mean it's just some of it's just funny and silly and just to get your attention to talk about it but yeah we we did one that was I think our packaging crew did like a spaghetti western kind of named our beer but there was like actual notes from like the Italian you know fair and I was like that's an that's an odd one but sometimes the craziest things work yeah I agree I totally agree well yeah okay this has been awesome what's the um what's the best place for people to to follow along with you and all your expertise in the space and best place for people to follow along with upslope as well I would say LinkedIn for me but you should just follow upslope cause it's a lot more interesting so yeah so upslope on Instagram and Facebook are really where we're primarily active but yeah that's where we'll keep you informed on new beer releases fun stuff at the taproom our backcountry taproom that's coming up in September and then you know we'll Geo target to some of those the eight states that I was talking about so yeah following us on social is a great way to keep perfect keep up with the brew news awesome okay this has been great really appreciate the time maybe some of the core products you guys are offering based on all that you've Learned this hot boosted IPA that you guys launched like yeah then they find themselves buying the brand's what what have been the that's a tough one honestly there's some crazy stuff