On Aire Ep. 16 w/ Matt Moore of Martin City Brewery Transcript

[Intro – Host: Team Jensen]

Host: all right all right welcome listeners we are very excited for episode 16 today we have Matt Moore with Martin City Brewing Company here today and fun for us this is actually our inaugural sponsorship episode with Martin City so we are very excited to have you on thanks for coming on with us and it’s nice to finally see what our dollars are being spent on.

Matt: happy to be here guys excited to have you on… we’re taking down people one Drinker at a time so you know that’s that’s our plight.

Host: happy to dive into your background… hear your story about how the idea came about and when all of a sudden you said, you know, I should start selling this and grow a Brewery.

[The Origin Story & Homebrewing Roots] Matt: my business partner Chance and I, we were sailors on Lake Jacomo… started making beer together and I mean it was like any home brewer… doing that probably in 2009, 8, 9, 10… my family owned the building that we opened the original restaurant in and we were at lunch one day, one of those things where it’s like, man, we should put a brewery in there.

Matt: we opened the original restaurant under the guise of Martin City Brewing Company [in 2011]… we were home brewing and trying to give away beer, but alcohol control shut that down real quick. Our food was second to none… scratch gourmet bar food. The restaurant went really well and we parlayed that, doubled down, and built the brewery right next door [in 2014]. Since then it’s been Pizza and Tap Rooms non-stop.

[Expansion and Partnerships]

Host: how many locations are you up to?

Matt: we’re up to six Pizza and Tap Rooms, we also have the original Pub which is Coast to Coast Pub, and then we’re at the airport and the Current is the most recent… so if you count those two it’d be seven. We’re hot on the heels of eight and nine also.

Matt: Chance isn’t involved anymore… I have a majority stake in all of them… we’ve brought on General Partners to help ease the capital outlay and give people a stake in the business. Our furthest North location is Lenexa, 87th on the west side… we’re walking that state line corridor North into North KC.

[The Craft: IPs and Brewing Philosophy]

Host: what is the beer that you didn’t make that you wish you did?

Matt: I am a big fan of a citrus wheat… I don’t think we’ve come close to perfecting what I’d like out of that beer… but when we started, I wanted to make the perfect IPA… Hardway is about as good an IPA as there is out there… it’s 50-55% of our sales, it’s my favorite beer, the freight train behind the brew.

Matt: we have brewed a couple seltzers… it’s one of those things, do you want to be great at a few things or mediocre at all of them? We did not make a seltzer that was great… it’s a scale thing, we just don’t want to be everything to everybody.

[Collaboration and the KC Community] Host: what has entering the small business world shown you about how Kansas City treats their own?

Matt: there’s been a hundred people that have helped me… Mike Derby who owns Coaches, Steve Holle at KC Bier Co has been extremely open, Boulevard early on was very helpful before the sale… I’ve been in the Vistage program, went through the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program (HEMP)… everybody’s time is the most valuable asset, I give them all the time I can. Kansas City is good about that… people are so friendly, they look you in the eyes and talk to you. We take it for granted but it’s absolutely not the norm.

[Local Distribution Strategy]

Host: what is the furthest you guys distribute to right now?

Matt: we used to go across Kansas, we pulled back in and we’re just the metro area. I think we’ll extend to Lawrence with a Q39 opening up there… we do a specialty brew, Brew 39, for them. I would rather have it locally consumed fresh than rotten on shelves in Hays or Wichita. We want to be Kansas City.

[Wrap-Up]

Host: really appreciate you coming on… pay them a visit at one of their locations… if you’re at a Current game go grab some Martin City beers.

Matt: look for a Tap Room opening up near you hopefully… I’m more blessed than I ever should be and thankful for everything we’ve got.

Host: perfect.