Fritz Maytag addresses National Beer Wholesalers Association convention

Modern Brewery Age, Oct 12, 1998

I must say I am very flattered to have been invited to speak with you. Ron Sarasin [president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association] is a hero of mine, and I know he couldn't do as good a job as he is doing without your members, especially the officers and board members. I can imagine how difficult it would be to run a business today and serve in that kind of role. My hat is off to you.

I was raised in Iowa, and when I came into Chicago yesterday, I realized that to me Chicago will always be the big city. So I am especially proud and nervous to be here this morning to speak with you.

Years ago, I used to stand in our old brewery in San Francisco, late at night after everyone had left, trying figure out how to make a nickel brewing beer. Our old brewery was a tiny little thing. And I would look at our little fermenter. We had just one, and it was an open fermenter, as we still use. And I used to look at that beer burbling away, and I would think to myself "50 barrels of beer, 100 kegs, 20,000 glasses. Who in the world is ever going to buy all of this beer?" Now we make 30 million glasses of beer, and I often still wonder who buys it all; but I do know who sells it, and it's you folks. And I am very grateful.

I want to speak about three or four things that I think are pertinent to our industry from your point of view. I know that there is nothing more irritating than somebody who pretends to be speaking about the industry and keeps telling you how wonderful his company is, and I will try to avoid that. But you realize it will he hard.

First, I'd like to tell you a little story. A small brewer I know was walking on the beach recently in California, thinking deep thoughts as we do when we walk on the beach. Thoughts like "what's the difference between lying and perjury?" Stuff like that. [general laughter]. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. It reminds me of the '70s, when someone would get up and say "I'm going to tell you how to bake an apple pie, but first I want to speak about the war." [general laughter].

Anyway, he's walking on the beach, and he found this old bottle, and he rubbed it, and a genie came out. She said, "This is a third time this week that someone has picked up this bottle, and I'm getting pretty tired of it. So I'm not going to give you three wishes, I'm going to give you one, so you better make it a good one." The brewer thought for a moment, and then he said, "I'd like to have a bridge to Hawaii, because I don't like to fly, and I've always wanted to go, and if there was a bridge I could drive." And she blanched. She said, "That's crazy. It's almost 3,000 miles to Hawaii, and the ocean is 7,000 feet deep. We'd have to have a support column every couple of hundred yards. That's more steel and cement than we have in the world. You have to think of something else." So he thought for another minute, and then he said, "All right, my wholesalers are always asking me for point-of-sale. Then, when I go visit them, it's all buffed in this little room [general laughter]. They tell me they want support, but when I call them up to make an appointment to send someone from the brewery to help them sell, they act like it's a surprise and then they give me some young kid who doesn't know anything. And when we go out into the trade all they show me are accounts that already have my beer. I know about those accounts; I want to go to places that don't have my beer. What it comes down to is that I can't understand my wholesalers. I want you to enable me to understand my wholesalers." And so then the genie says, "O.K., about that bridge. Would two lanes be enough?" [general laughter].

Years ago, at a small brewers meeting, I said to the assembled brewers, "Go home and hug your wholesaler." And I meant it. Small brewers owe you guys just about everything. And I'm proud to be here representing all the small brewers in the United States, to say thank you on their behalf.

And I say thank you especially for myself. I can remember the exact moment that a beer wholesaler entered my life. My dear friend Don Saccani came to see me again and again when I was first bottling my beer. And he told me how he wanted to sell it. And I told him "I can't do that, I need the mark-up for myself. I've calculated it over and over, and I have to have that mark-up. We're very small, and we're going to have to continue to deliver our beer ourselves." But not long after we started bottling, my driver quit. So I was on the truck. And around that time, I remembered Don Saccani [general laughter]. And I can remember exactly where I was when 1 remembered Don. 1 was down on the Peninsula, and I had about 200 things to do, not including delivering the beer. So I called Don, and ! said, "why don't you take over San Jose for us." And, bless his heart, he said "I'll do it, I'll be there tomorrow." And I quickly gave him all of our territories, and I've never regretted it. That was in the summer of 1971. And I remember having lunch with Don, not long after we got started. And we were talking about every imaginable thing, full of energy, and we each had a large hamburger. And we each finished our hamburgers, and we were having a fine time, still talking about more and more things. And after awhile l said "Don, that hamburger was terrific, I could eat another one." And he said, "So could I." So we had another one. And I think of that two-hamburger lunch, and I see how many of you are much younger than I am, maybe much younger than I was in those days. Those of you who are young, and optimistic and enthusiastic, taking on all these new challenges, my hat is off to you. I was there once. It's funny, one day you're the youngest guy around, and then in the blink of an eye, maybe you're not the oldest, but you're getting there.