Episode 72 Intuition Beer and Daytona Beverage

Episode Summary

Episode 72 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast takes a detour from tobacco into craft beer. Hosts Mike and Mike welcome Tyler Benham of Intuition Ale Works — the Jacksonville brewery founded by Ben Davis in 2010 — along with Cliff Stevenson, high-end brand manager at Daytona Beverage, who handles the craft portfolio for Volusia and Flagler counties. The conversation opens with Intuition's origin story, including how founder Ben Davis was inspired by a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to brew his own, leading to I-10 IPA and People's Pale Ale, which Tyler notes was the first beer ever canned in Florida.

The guys dig into the practical side of the beer business: why cans protect beer better than bottles (no UV light, better seal, "baby kegs"), how freshness and inventory rotation drive a rep's day, and the difference between the Anheuser-Busch and Miller distributor "houses." Tyler shares beer-fest war stories — including a customer projectile vomiting off a hotel balcony into an occupied pool — and describes the range of events reps work, from a Disney convention with a tap truck to the shop's own trivia night where Intuition poured El Guapo Mexican lager.

The centerpiece is a live tasting of Intuition's four core beers: Jon Boat golden ale (their taproom's best seller and a "gateway beer"), Daybreak grapefruit gose (salty-tart, great with a shot of tequila), Easy on the Eyes session IPA (citra-forward and tropical), and I-10 West Coast style IPA at 6.7% ABV — plus talk of their year-round King Street stout and upcoming pineapple and pineapple-mint sours. The hosts weigh in on beer-and-cigar pairing philosophy, arguing pairings are more about personal preference and setting than rules, recommending a lighter Connecticut shade for a round of golf rather than something like the full-bodied Neanderthal.

The back half covers the state of craft beer: consolidation (Dogfish Head and Sam Adams merging), the closing of Red Cypress, the rise of local-first drinking, where Intuition ranks against Cigar City and Funky Buddha, and how Sanford is modeling its brewery district on Asheville. Tyler also tells how Intuition's head brewer Andrew was a friend from his Atlanta brewing days, and the episode closes with the show's five questions, a lecture on why Tyler needs an Instagram, and a nostalgic tangent about JNCO jeans.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Meet the Guests: Intuition Ale Works & Daytona Beverage
   Tyler Benham of Intuition Ale Works and Cliff Stevenson, high-end brand manager for Daytona Beverage, explain their roles covering the Daytona, Volusia and Flagler markets.
2. 02
   Intuition's Origin Story
   Founder Ben Davis started the Jacksonville brewery in 2010, inspired by Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, launching I-10 IPA and People's Pale Ale — the first beer ever canned in Florida.
3. 03
   Cans vs. Bottles and Beer Freshness
   Why cans act like 'baby kegs' — blocking UV light and oxygen — and why rotating fresh product is a rep's biggest job.
4. 04
   Life as a Beer Rep: Events and Beer Fest Chaos
   From pouring off a tap truck at a Disney convention to trivia nights at the cigar shop, plus the wildest thing Tyler has seen at a beer festival.
5. 05
   Tasting the Four Core Beers
   Live tasting notes on Jon Boat golden ale, Daybreak grapefruit gose, Easy on the Eyes session IPA and the I-10 West Coast IPA, with ABVs and flavor breakdowns.
6. 06
   Beer and Cigar Pairing Philosophy
   The hosts argue pairing is about personal preference and setting — recommending a lighter Connecticut shade for the golf course over a bold San Andrés smoke like Neanderthal.
7. 07
   The State of Craft Beer
   Consolidation, brewery closures like Red Cypress, the local-first consumer, sours as the fastest-growing style, and how Intuition stacks up against Cigar City and Funky Buddha.
8. 08
   Five Questions and Social Media Advice
   Tyler answers the show's signature five questions and gets a hard sell on why every beer rep needs an Instagram.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

Hey, this is Mike Tu. Welcome to a Cigar Hustlers podcast episode 72. Uh, hold on just a second. This week, we sit down and, uh, yeah, just talk to the guys from Intuition Beer.

Stay tuned, see if somebody might get drunk. You guys want to introduce yourselves to start? We got some special guests in today from the beer industry. That's right, beer industry.

Cliff Stevenson with Daytona Beverages, high-end brand manager. So I help manage our craft beer portfolio for Volusia and Flagler County. I am Tyler Benham, I work with Intuition Ale Works, Jacksonville Brewery, pretty much work with Cliff hand-in-hand out in the Daytona market. All right, so Cliff, so you want to tell them about the mic?

I need to get a little closer to the mic, Cliff, or Tyler, sorry, Cliff's got it. So Cliff, you put up with our bullshit on a weekly basis. Weekly basis. You come in, you force us to buy stuff, and...

That makes sense in sales. I don't sell you crappy beer. It's awesome. This is awesome because...

High-end stuff. Right. Yeah, we have a tendency to carry a little bit more, some of the limited stuff here at Cigar Hustler, right? And we've recently kind of got into intuition because, you know, this is Tyler's second or third time around and he obviously won't go away.

That's not going to happen. That's what it takes to get in here. He's here for good. It's determination.

So you might as well start promoting the product and what the fuck, you know? We did do a quiz, you came in for one of the quiz things that we actually wound up giving up on because it sucked, but you still came out, you gave it a shot, which we truly appreciate. It was a really good time, I got to meet a bunch of your regulars that come in, I guess, on a weekly basis as well, and we got to all hang out and just bullshit, so it was a really good time to try El Guapo that time, it was our Mexican lager. Right, I think that just got tapped.

Those fuckers that usually come in on the quiz show, they're all there for just the free stuff. That's the first thing they told me. They were like, what free stuff you got? I'm like, what are you buying?

I love them to death, but god damn it, man. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about the company that you work for and, you know, how they kind of got started? So, Intuition started with Ben Davis. He got into wine a long time ago and then he moved back to Florida because he came from Florida.

He started this company in 2010 after drinking, I believe it was a Sierra Nevada actually, so pale ale. And he really enjoyed that, and then he just wanted to make his own, and that's where I-10 came from. So, I-10, if anybody's familiar with Jacksonville, it's pretty much the start of Interstate 10, and it runs all the way to California, it goes all the way across, and that was his first beer. People's Pale Ale followed after that, and that was the first beer ever canned in Florida, so we were the first brewery to really introduce canning into Florida as well.

So, one of our big twos that really were kind of influential for everybody else that kind of followed. What's the big difference between cans and bottles? Does it affect the flavor? It actually is going to be as fresh as possible when you get it in a can.

So, the best thing about, I can say what cans are, are like baby kegs. So, no light gets to it. You don't have any of the rattling and stuff like that. So, when you get light going through beer, it offsets the flavor.

Cans completely sealed. They got a membrane on the inside, so you don't get that canny taste. Back in the day, everybody used to complain about that. It tastes like a tin can.

If it does, pour it in a glass. And it's probably more cost-efficient as well. A little bit more cost-effective. It stacks better.

You can stack cans. Like he said, two things affect beer freshness, and that's the UV light and oxygen, and so it's actually a better seal than a bottle, and obviously, it blocks all the light instead of some of it. Do you live in Jacksonville? Actually, I live out here in Deltona, so...

You live out in Deltona? This is why I live in Deltona. He's local, yeah. He's out here.

I used to have a cigar shop when I was in South Orlando that I would go to, but it's not the same. Like, this place really kind of sucked me in. So, like, I stopped it whenever I'm on my way back from Orlando. My territory is pretty much almost Tampa to Cocoa.

Right. And North. So, but you just were telling us before that you just came back from North Carolina. Yes, I was in North Carolina for, we surprised a friend up there.

He, uh, he moved up there on a, on a position with Dogfish Head. Right. And he, um, had no friends. " Because he's dousing himself with gasoline.

" So like, okay, so all the other people in the industry you're kind of close with, you know, even though it's like kind of in the cigar industry, like, we're friends with everybody. Or at least the people who are cool, right? Even though they're considered your competition, I guess, to some degree, but they're kind of not as well. So, you know, you just got to get along with everybody, you know, right.

So, what it is, is kind of like, so, there's like two families, really, you got your AB houses and your Miller houses, and then all those reps kind of stay together. Right. But, when you cross borders or cross districts, like, sometimes you're in a different house, so you get different people that you meet, or you're not always there. So you can always, like, intertwine between the two houses and hang out.

Right. So it's pretty cool. So it's never, like, a knife fight doesn't break out or anything like that? There's a couple every now and then, if you know somebody's headhunting your lines or something like that, it doesn't really happen anymore.

Right. Okay, so you're local. So what else do you do? Do you just check into the stores or do you do like parties and stuff like that?

We do a lot of events. We just did a convention with Disney not too long ago, so it's kind of like we parked our truck out there, we were pouring straight from the taps on our truck and just hanging out. We do big things like that, and then we turn around and we do small things like the trivia night with you guys, it's more like a personal kind of thing, so I bounce around and do that, but that's like a small percent of what we actually do as reps, we have to look at inventory, we have to make sure that the right people are getting the right products, freshness on all our cans that are actually out in the market is a huge deal, we really want to make sure you guys are getting the best product, so a new customer comes up and doesn't buy an old beer, like that's one of our biggest things, like we really want to make sure that you're getting our best product, so a new customer comes up and doesn't buy an old beer, like that's one of our biggest things, like we really want to make sure that you're getting our best product. Got it.

It's a lot of inventory-like management, and it's not just what us. " You know, I've tried calling him in the middle of the night, he doesn't answer. That's a bold-faced lie. I'll answer my phone after hours.

" Giving you a heads up. I know how Dan is. I had like 12 beers yesterday, and you're like trying to talk business. " Okay, so you have, these are your four core lines, right?

Yes, so we have our, what we're rolling into is our course pretty much kind of pushed through summer, and then all of our specialty releases will be released periodically throughout the summer. So that's usually one of the big things, like with the beer industry, you're gonna see like one special release at a certain time of the year, kind of thing, yeah. How many specialties do you release a year? We try to do four to eight because we're rolling in with the new Sour line, so we're actually releasing a Pineapple Sour that's going to be into the Orlando and Daytona market soon, Pineapple Mint Sour, so that's kind of like a summer series along with our double IPA that's coming out as well, so.

Okay, so now, out of these little kind of events that you do, the big ones and the small ones, what's been the craziest experience that you've had at any of them? Well, there's a couple things out on the coast when I was out in Cocoa that were kind of like, whoop, all right, so we do beer fest and everybody loves beer fest, but before the beer fest, most of the guys, like all of our friends, will get together and we'll do a shotgun or, you know, like to get ready. The beer reps. Yeah, the beer reps.

Yeah, the beer reps. Like a team huddle. Yeah, a team huddle, just get together. There's some times where some beer reps get a little too crazy, because we're always trading beers throughout this festival, because we're not going to sit there for eight hours and not drink a beer, you know what I mean?

Right. And we did get a room out there one time, and still drinking throughout the day, and then into the night, this was a beer fest about four or five months back, and we were all staying there, and so after the fest, a bunch of, like, the customers, I guess you could say, came back with us to the hotel, and we were all hanging out, and one of them was projectile vomiting over the side of the balcony, landing in the pool, and we're like, it wasn't my hotel room, so that was the best part, but that was probably one of the worst, like, kind of, like, not worst, but craziest. Were there people in the pool? Yeah.

Oh, fuck. That was the worst part. They were like, is it raining? And I'm like, oh.

And we're all, okay, so we've been drinking all day. And so we're not the quickest. And we're like, oh, that's funny. Oh, shit.

Oh, no. Get in the room. Before we get in the room. We all bolted.

We all went to our own rooms. Right. I won't name names, but that guy wasn't very happy about his rooms. Because it was just a random customer.

And we're like, who the hell is this guy? Who's responsible for this guy? We're like Olympic athletes when it comes to drinking all day, but it's like, when it comes to like, people trying to keep up with us, they try too hard, and we're like, yeah, you gotta pace it, Matt. So it was a customer.

Hell yeah. Nice. See, I thought it was a rep. Well, let's just say that-- Usually the reps can hang.

Yeah, that guy has a permanent line of his beer at that place, so. Yeah, no shit, moving forward. Like, oh, it's not selling? Guess what?

Doesn't matter. Here's another fucking keg, asshole. So, alright, so we've got craziest experience out of the way. Now, like you have, I see here like an IPA, you have two IPAs, right?

There's obviously, go ahead. We have a Wesco style IPA, and then we have a session IPA. So the session is going to be, and the word sessionable, super light, ABP, IPAs. You can drink more than three of them?

Yeah, pretty easy. I love that beer. Yeah, so those, that's pretty much the difference between those two. One's super light, easy drinking, the other one's an actual full IPA.

- Okay, and what are the other two that you have? - So the other two that we have is, we have our Jombo, which is a Golden Ale, with English Maltz, we call it a Coastal Ale, it's super light, it's one of the easy drinking beers, yeah, it's a gateway beer. - Try to get the domestic drinker onto something, it's a gateway beer, gateway beer. - I'm not gonna lie, all of us in this industry can't really drink, like, this crazy amount of hops over, like, we'll have one or two and be like, alright, I need something light, and so that's why these golden ales and lagers and just pale ales, the super light beers, They're coming back, like, real hard, so that's our answer to that.

John Boat sells two-to-one in our actual brewery to our IPA, pretty much in our taproom, so it's our number one selling beer in the taproom, and it just goes to show people want to drink all day and hang out when you're visiting and experiencing these things. And they have a beautiful taproom, by the way, it's right by the... It's right by the Jag Stadium. You can hit it with a stone.

We've been in Jags a couple of times, I don't know how eager we are to return the beer. If we had a beer location, maybe that would change things. Well, I'll take you guys up there. So the Daybreak.

So the Daybreak is our brand new. So we used to run with a pale ale called People's Pale. Like I said earlier, it was the first Florida beer to be canned and everything like that. We retired it last year, about this time, so we retired it from the market.

You can get it in some areas, we make it exclusively for certain people, but we replaced it with a Goz. So fastest growing style in beer right now is going to be your Sours and your Goz's. We're riding into that train as well trying to keep up with that. So this is a Go style grapefruit ale.

You're pretty much going to get a little salty tartness to it. So very good citrus, but the salt kind of cuts through it. So it's pretty nice, refreshing. It's awesome to drink when it's hot out.

Add a shot of tequila to it. Fantastic. Tastes like a margarita, basically a beer margarita if you add a little tequila to it. Very nice.

It's delicious. Do you have the tequila? Do we have the tequila? It's right up your alley.

You got some tequila headphones? Yeah, sure. I'm gonna be honest, I don't have any tequila with me right now. So, how long have you been with the company?

So, a little over a year now. So, I worked at World of Beer over in the UCF area for a while. Okay. One of the busiest ones.

It was a good one, yeah. Downtown's was the busiest, and then we were right behind it. We were nipping at the heels, so. No shit.

Trying to. I wonder if you know my cousin. I think you do. Probably.

Kaylee Cobb is her name. Kaylee Cobb, yeah. She used to work with us, and now she's running Brass Tap. She's one of my best accounts.

" I'm like, "Thanks, bud. " So moving kind of along with the market overall, like what's really kind of crazy was with craft beer and cigars, there are a lot of similarities, right? Would you consider the market at this point saturated, or would you say that there's still more room to grow? I mean, 'cause I'm starting to see some beer shops...

Closing down. So I would say, with this market, like we've all seen the plateau happen, but it depends on who's out there, and that's what's gonna turn around craft beer, so we just saw, like, I'm not trying to drop names, but Dogfish Head and Sam Adams merge, that's one of the two biggest craft breweries together now, it's almost like a survival plan, I mean, we all see it, but the fact that I've grown so far, like, year over year, we're up 14%, all of a sudden. And last year was our busiest year in eight years, so we were like, we're seeing a growth, but I think it's a local scene now. So if you're local, you're gonna have better growth than these big dogs out there, as long as you have the right people in the right area.

Yeah, because more often than not, a lot of our beers that are on tap or stuff that's kind of affiliated with Florida is really what moves the best. That's the best. Yep. People want local.

And the best thing is you're going to have people that are traveling through. What's local here? Well, we have this from Jacksonville, we have this from Tampa, you know, that's going to be your first options. And then you're going to go to your national brands.

Right. Very true. Okay, so you're seeing growth. Yeah.

So what makes your IPAs and your sessions different than, you know, your other run-of-the-mill craft beers? Well, I mean, it's going to be taste, first off. Right. We're in this weird scene where IPAs are going to like milkshakes and fun stuff like that, it's a lot, it's really interesting to see where the IPA name started, what we have here is a true default West Coast style, so when you drink this, this is what IPAs were like back in my day, I guess I could say that, when IPAs didn't have like 12 syrups in it, you know, I'm not just saying that, but like, it's just a straight up, we're true default, all of our beers, all of our beers are super chill, Just because it's a simple format doesn't mean that it's a bad beer, right?

There is a format, keep it simple, right? Yeah. The traditional, which is a lot of people have gone off the beaten path and kind of lost how beer used to be made in taste. Yeah, it's cool to try, but I mean, drinking more than one, maybe not.

You could drink more than one of these, that's the best thing, like, because it's true to form. Like, it's an IPA. We're looking for resales. Right.

So, like, obviously you have, um, shit, why can't I think of the name? Uh, what's the fucking, the, the one in Tampa, the big one? Cigar City. Cigar City, yeah.

So you have Cigar City here, Funky Buddha, right, in Florida. Like, those are two of your big dogs, right? Oh, yeah. Um, where do you think Intuition ranks on the overall list of crap?

Closer to Jacksonville, the higher up we are. Yeah, right. We are actually really strong in that Jacksonville market. We've established such a dominance there that we are the cigar city over there, but we're moving chess pieces, other people are playing checkers, so what we're doing is trying to fully establish ourselves before we move to the next market, so we're moving our name down the coast, that's why we're building our relationship with Daytona Beth so strongly right now, and that we really want to bring that Jacksonville kind of swag, if you will, and bring it down the coast all the way down, and that's our big thing, and then build north.

So, we're moving the needle. I wouldn't say across Florida we're ranked high, but... Jacksonville is killing it. Yeah, I mean, you know...

If you go to any bar in Jacksonville, you're going to see multiple handles of intuition everywhere. Well, I mean, you've been in business seven years, right? How long has Cigar City been in business? Eight years.

Eight years. Okay. Well, no, we've been eight years in business. Oh, you've been eight?

Yeah, 2010. 2010. So, our nine-year anniversary is in October, if I'm not mistaken. And how long Cigar City?

So they're a little bit ahead of you as far as time. They caught the boom, grew real well. They're an awesome formula. I love Hi-Li.

It's probably one of my favorite beers. Drank it last night. It's a great beer. Yeah, you see it everywhere.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's an easy fit for especially guys in the cigar industry. All right, you want a drink? Yeah, let's crack some beers for sure.

Okay, cool. What should we go with first? You're the experienced, the master. So we're going to go with John Boat first, and then we're going to kind of move your taste buds.

So that's our blue one. Mr. Palmer is very excited about this. He's got his glass all ready.

He's in here. We're ready to go. Let's go. Can we drink?

Why don't we drink it? Wait, I'll get my own. I got a share. I'm going to take a little bit.

Get your whole glass all to yourself. Thanks, sir. You can take all these home with you. The glasses?

The beers. Oh. They're all open. I'll spill them all over the place.

I'll get you another set. There you go. All right. Well, cheers, guys.

Cheers. This is our golden ale. Give it a good little whiff. You can smell some nice little toasty malts in there, the English malts I use.

Super smooth. Very easy, very clean. Very good. Yeah, so you're gonna get these people that are like, giggling drinkers and stuff like that.

Right. Hey, you want to try a local beer? Boom. Throw this right at 'em.

Tap your microphone. Thank you. Just getting some feedback. Okie doke.

This high-tech equipment. This beer is like maybe scruffling it, I think. We're a highly trained establishment. Yeah.

I get magic touch. So it's gonna be light, clean, little residual sweetness on the plate. There's a real sweetness on the back end. What would you pair with this?

As far as a cigar? I mean, you know, what's funny is I see a lot of people that will recommend specific pairings. I think that a lot of it's more universal, because you can go with a bold cigar and a light beer. You know, I'd love to see that debate.

" You know? Or if you want to do a light cigar with a light beer, you could do that, too. So I think that it really kind of is based on personal preference. And you're really kind of getting into a more complicated level at that point.

Whereas if somebody likes something sweet, you know, give them something sweet. You know, I don't think you really need to counterbalance it. We did make a stout with our Habano in mind when we blended our beer, right? Just because the sweetness of the beer complemented the Habano really, really well.

But with that being said, if somebody said, "No, you're full of shit, I'd rather drink this with that," I'd be like, "What the fuck do you know? " Well, my thing is this, this is my golf beer, so, and I try to golf at least like once a week . My boss is watching. So, my thing is this, like, it's, I, I, this is pretty much what I sneak on, and, or, I mean, buy.

Right. This is bad. I'm editing this. We do smoke cigars out on the golf course.

My friends and I do, all the time, so I was just wondering, like, what would be an actual pairing, 'cause I need to, of course, I'm going to stock up. Well, see, in that scenario as well, you know, you're having a light beer, you're probably going to want a light cigar because of where you're at, right? I mean, you got 18 holes. I love the Neanderthal, which is a San Andreas cigar.

Super fucking full-bodied, bold. I'd love to see you smoke that on 18 holes in 95-degree fucking weather. It's gonna be fun. Yeah.

Well, I mean, we sometimes make it to 18, but, like, see where our card tenses. It's three. It's three. So, you know, I mean, I would do something like a Connecticut Shade, something that's a little bit lighter, maybe with some undertones of spice, not over the top, but not so much of the thought process of the pairing of the beer as just the overall atmosphere, you know?

Yeah. That makes perfect sense, yeah. All right, round two. Round two.

All right, now this is gonna be the fun one. We're gonna go 180. This is our daybreak goes. So, I like to mess with you guys.

Are you guys into sour beers yet? Uh, no. I'm not a huge beer drinker, to be honest. My wife and her friends like the sour beers.

Yeah, this is actually really easy drinking. So, a lot of women like this style, too, when they try it, because it's similar to-- In my little group we hang out with, the women like the sour beers. They can relate to, like, almost a wine. It's a wine feel, too.

It's like a wine feel, or kind of like that acidity of, like, what wine has sometimes. Which is amazing because they're actually, I know sours are growing the most, but like they're the actual fastest growing consumer of craft beer now, as women. No shit. Oh really?

Yeah, so they went from like 3% to 7% over like a full year and you're kind of just like, not bad. So not super sour, it's gonna be a little tart. Yeah, it's not over the top. Not over the top.

It's got, it does, you can definitely taste the sourness, but it's not like, oh my god. A little subtle grapefruit, and that adds a little bit to that tartness too, like natural tartness of a grapefruit. Yeah, pretty much it. Salted grapefruit.

Salted grapefruit. Add a shot of tequila to it, you're gonna do alright. Yeah, that's right, the salted, you can taste the salt. A little tequila.

Yeah. Right? A little tequila, you got a little... Category 5, uh...

Which was your fucking... What's the name of the place? What? Oh, Cat 5 Bar, yeah.

Yeah, the Cat 5 Bar. There you go. In your backyard. That's pretty good.

That was good. Super light. It's pretty good. So, like, on a date today, I mean, when it's 150 degrees out, you drink a couple of these, you still feel hydrated.

Right. Pretty nice. Very nice. Alright.

We're going to take a quick break. You want to pause it right here? I've been watching the timer, buddy. Alright, so pause here and then we're going to take a quick break.

We'll be back, I guess. Hey, this is Mike Tu from A Cigar Hustlers Podcast. If you're enjoying the audio version, make sure you get over to YouTube to A Cigar Hustlers Podcast so you can see the madness in person. And we're back.

And we're back already. Wasn't that great? Oh, thank you. That's going to be a great transition.

I'll throw up. We have some free commercials in there. It's going again. We're good.

We're good? That was it? Yeah. Just like that, we're back.

I got to turn it off and turn it back on. That's all I got to do. That was no break. I didn't even exhale.

It's like it never happened. That could never happen. It's amazing. And the audio audience doesn't even get a break.

And we're back. And we're back. All right, so. Next is the session.

We're gonna go Session. We're gonna go Session. Session IPA. So this is our Easy on the Ice.

This is the beer they named after me. It's our Session IPA, it's super light. You're gonna get more citra hop in there, so you're gonna get a little more tropical flavors. Really easy drinking.

Want me to get more of that? I don't know. That's good. Not an IPA fan?

No, no, no. He's just been... No, he's an alcoholic. Oh, perfect.

My kind of customer. Yeah, exactly. It's a perfect customer right there. Hey, take good care of him, you know.

I hear him, you know, they'll be like, "Intuition's the best," and they'll fucking be setting up on the table and shit. So this has got an amazing nose on it, a lot of very hot forward. Very refreshing IPA. Very refreshing.

Light on the finish, a lot of hot flavor. Yeah, the slashing you're doing in your mouth sounds really good on the air. You gotta mix it around, you gotta get the, you know. That's how you properly taste this.

Yeah. You can do the fuck with the wine. You know, constantly judging me. You're very loud.

Look, you control this shit. What the fuck do you want from me? You have the fucking power. Turn me the fuck down.

You can just turn them down. Turn his mouth noises down. I'm fucking number one. No, that doesn't work anymore.

That doesn't work anymore. So what do you think? Oh, good. This is really good.

Yeah. Really good. We're bringing this back. Undertone's a great fruit.

I'm not a big IPA guy. It's got a great fruit finish. But it tastes good, though. It's got a good flavor.

IPAs are something that just grows on you. You just keep trying them, trying them, trying them. One day you wake up and you're like, I love these things and then you each each hop has a distinct flavor So then you start finding the love for like simco has different flavors of hops and then you know Instead of falling in love with the style. I love the flavor.

I'm liking beers because of the hot flavors right hunt those specific beers down so Very nice. Just keep trying on one day. They'll grow on you. That's how it happens.

That's what you said to your wife, right? We're just gonna keep going This is fine. This is fine. Don't worry.

One day you'll figure it out. Shut your eyes. Just shut your eyes. All right.

All right. All right. So last is our West Coast style IPA. PI 10.

I'll put these back for you. I'm not on my reach. What are you doing? It's going to be a little bit more hoppier, a little bit more bitter.

You're going to definitely get a lot more malt characteristic, because that's a West Coast style. It's a kind of malt forward. A lot of hops to kind of balance everything out. It's going to be nice and hoppy on the front, and then it falls off dry.

You're gonna get like a nice, not a very lingering feeling. Alright. Which one do I keep close to you? I like these two.

Don't take these two. Okay. I like these two. Seeing this fucking shit face in 10 minutes.

Perfect. For one beer? What's the ABV on these? 7.

For which one? The daybreak? Oh, the daybreak is four and a half. And the jumbo?

Four and a half. Four and a half. Four and a half. That's like one.

That's nine. Yeah, you add them together. You gotta find the average. So, it's four and a half.

Yeah, it's four and a half, four and a half. Four and a half. You just add everything, divide by three. Thank you.

Not a fan. He's judging me because I... He's sloshing. He can hear it.

He's sloshing. He's sloshing the knife. I think we should all slosh it. The I-10's the best one.

You like the I-10 the best? Yeah. It is fantastic. It's a solid beer.

It's really good. It's our workhorse. I mean everybody has to have a good IPA, this is, I kind of call it a beginner's IPA, if you're not really into hops or bitter beer, you can really drink this beer because of the malts that we use in it. Yeah, it's got a really good finish.

Yeah, a little lighter than the other one. Yeah, it's not as, yeah, it doesn't have like a grapefruit or anything like that. Right. A better balance, I think, the other one's very hot forward.

Right. 7, this is a little bit better, just shy of that 7 mark. I have to try this one again. Let me return back here.

Getting back on the John boat. There should be an I-4-1, but it'll take, you know. There technically is an I-4-1. There is an I-4-1.

Right. Who makes it? Orlando Brewing Company. Yeah.

Yeah? Does it take two hours to get here, no matter where you are in fucking Orlando? Two hours to drink, no matter where you open it. Is it fucking broken?

I can't even lie how true that is. It doesn't always open. I was going from Disney World, and I was driving back home, just in that Orlando part alone, was like two hours, as soon as I got past there. It's terrible.

What's up with the hill coming this way? Going over the two hills? The bridges? I only think every day.

That's because it funnels in, and you lose lanes. It's still three lanes. Yeah. I don't know what to tell you.

I got nothing. It's a fucking catastrophe. Right there at Samford, it just locks up. Yeah, that's what I was talking about.

Right over the bridge. Every day at four o'clock. Yep. Terrible.

Don't even try. Good stuff. Alright, so I kind of asked you, did I ask, where do you see the future craft beer? I guess so.

Yeah. It's getting tough, it's falling back to, you know, touch base on it a little bit more, it's falling back to the local scene. Some of the big players are getting, you're feeling it a little bit because there's so many locals. Yeah.

And people just like to drink beer that's made locally. Right. People want local food, and it's the same thing with beer as well. It's all the hipsters.

The strong will survive. The guys that started early enough that will make it through it. A lot of people are feeling the squeeze already. Red Cypress.

Red Cypress just recently closed. They were big, very well respected. They made incredible liquid. It took me by surprise.

It's probably by far one of my favorite breweries. I've probably been there more than any other brewery in Florida. Only because Jacksonville. I've been to the intuition quite a few times.

Look, man, I mean, it's fuckin' Jacksonville, okay? No, you're not that bad. I just drove to North Carolina. Jacksonville's nothing, you children.

A little side story, though, on intuition, like, I go kind of far back to where the head of brewing operations, who started as the head brewer when they first opened, I've actually known longer than my oldest daughter, so I actually met him in Atlanta when I was still stationed in the military. No shit. My buddy was the head brewer of a brew pub called Mark Twain's in Decatur, Georgia, and when I was learning, that's right around the time I was getting into craft beer and trying to learn and trying to brew and everything else, and this guy was kind of like an icon in the brewing community there, so I was in there a lot trying to learn and volunteering in the brewery. Well, he was, Andrew was my buddy Jordan's assistant brewer.

He was working at Whole Foods part time, helping him out in the brewery part time. I got out of the Navy, moved back to Florida. I got a, you know, ran, I actually brewed my first seven barrel batch on a commercial system with him in Atlanta back in like 2009 when my buddy Jordan, he had some like errands to run. He's like, you guys are brewing today.

And they're like, all right. So we ended up brewing the whole, the whole batch for the brew pub or whatever. That day it was a brown ale. But fast forward back to when I got out of the Navy, moved back down to Florida.

I get a random message, I think, on Facebook or a random text message. Andrew's asking, what do I think about Jacksonville? And my last duty station, I moved from Atlanta to Kings Bay, Georgia. So there's nothing to do in Kings Bay, Georgia.

It's Country Woods and submarine base for the Navy there. I was going to Jacksonville a lot, and it was an upcoming craft beer scene. Bowl City was just opening then. A lot of good craft beer bars were already established.

I was like, Jacksonville's awesome, man. Like, compared to, you know, it's not Georgia, Georgia's way ahead of the time, believe it or not, in Atlanta, but I was like, you'll love it, and he didn't tell me what it was, and then a few months later, he's like, I took a job for Intuition, he ended up getting the head brewery position, he's still there, he's still a good friend of mine. No shit. So, Intuition, you know, holds my heart.

Do you go out to Sanford at all? I go to Sanford all the time, yeah. Oh yeah. Because, like, that's now, like, the fucking hotspot for all the time.

It is, so. No shit. Sanford is trying to take that Asheville concept, they actually took like all the business owners, they took a field trip out to Asheville, they talked to the like city out there, and they're poking their brains and how they supported the growth of all the different craft breweries and how everybody's staying afloat out there. They put everything to a vote, like they're very community-based, so if it doesn't benefit the community, they get rid of it.

Right, so they should. Yeah, they'll, they have like a bus that takes you, like that, that old school looking tram that takes you from the- Yeah, the trolley thing. Yeah, that, they, they, they all said, yes, this is what we wanted. And I was talking to one of the guys out there, and he goes, yeah, but we got to get the timing fixed, because people are not getting from the train station, when the train drops off, they're waiting like an hour for the trolley to get to there.

Yikes. So, they're addressing that, but everything, like they, they got that approved, so that takes you straight from the train station. Downtown Historic Spot, like, they got, they built that together, like, it's crazy. They're looking to do more on cigars over there, too.

Are they? Mm-hmm. Celery City? Yeah.

Yeah. They're opening up their own cigar place. Are they really? Yeah, because they own the two buildings, and I think they're putting it in between it or something like that.

Yep. Yeah, so. It's gonna be dope. They were kind of one of the founder craft beer bars, one of the, one of the first.

They were the first out there. Or the first, yeah. Yeah, them and Weston. Weston, you might not think it, but they throw a lot of craft out there, so they really support locals and really good people there.

I feel like I've got to get down there. You've never been? I was there like once. It's ten minutes from here, what's your excuse?

We're there like once or twice a month. I work here, I go home, I work here. It's like one of the best German food restaurants in the country. I've eaten there.

I've eaten there. That place is always packed. I've eaten there. Did they fucking get all crazy in this area?

Best beer brought you can get anywhere around here. You've got to do the boot. And the boot? The four of us have to go and do a boot.

I can break that off. Edit that out as well. Edit that out. This has never happened.

But yeah, Sanford's up and coming. I mean, I think there's like four, maybe five breweries in there now. There is. There's a vodka place now, too.

It's vodka and moonshine. Yeah, they just did their soft opening, I believe, last week. I was talking to Tuffy's. Yeah, I was talking to my buddy at Tuffy's about that.

There's a Cidery? That's Tuffy's. Yeah, Tuffy's, yeah. Huge beer garden.

Same guy that's involved. He got bocce outside, everything like that. No shit. Yeah.

Do you want to modify the five questions and make them more beer-oriented and then ask them? Yeah, we can do that. We got five questions. We have five questions we ask of cigar people.

Oh, that's a lot of be good. It's awesome because, you know, for one, he's never seen the show. This is one thing that I've got to tell you before we get started. So, you know, we're sitting up there, and Tyler says, oh, so you're going to be joining us for the podcast?

I was like, yeah. So he's never listened. He's never watched. I already didn't know about it.

He has no fucking idea. I follow you on Facebook. No, that's cool, but I'm just, you know, it's just, I know that you don't know about the questions, is my point. I'm just going to lie inside.

Okay. What one person, living or dead, would you like to share a beer with? Benjamin Franklin, hands down. Nice.

Yes. Instant response. Go ahead. Elaborate.

Well, my one year of improv at FAU is really paying off. " kind of thing, and just go from there, and I think pretty sure he could just fill that in. Plus, I heard he drank a lot, so it'd be kind of cool, because you're not gonna just get one. Right.

Right, yeah. I think that's a great answer. That was a great answer. I think he was a home brewer, too.

Yeah. I know George Washington was, but-- Oh, he brews up shit. " Exactly. That guy had some shit going on.

Yeah, definitely. Oh, a little Ria. Can I have some more? Just make sure you remember the questions.

What questions? You remember the questions? Tyler, I love you. You're the fucking best.

Thanks again. Yeah, man, you're the best. You're the best, Tyler. What one fictitious person would you like to share a beer with?

Fictitious? Movies, TV, we've had cartoon characters. Comic books. Comic books.

Probably be like Clark Kent. Right. I'm a huge DC fan, so I always follow House of Elle and Clark Kent, just kind of know it. Mark Kent just kind of knowing like your biggest abilities to hold back kind of thing at all times so you could rip the world in half.

" What's this faster than a speeding bullet? Using that as a designated driver. You know, he's like such a voice. I'll just ride on your back.

Yeah. No. But you'd have to get him to fucking cave and admit that he's Superman. Yeah.

That's true. It's true. You ruined everything. With some IPA, that would work, I guess.

Yeah, I was about to say. There you go. I can be convincing. Do you make stouts or anything for specialties?

Yes, we do. They make a hell of a stout. Yeah, we have a year-round stout that we use. It's called King Street.

It's available at Orlando Market, so you can see it floating around up there. We're getting some things turned on over here. But it's a year-round stout. 5%, super clean, smoky.

5%. Yeah, dude. Only 8. You know, you gotta hit the 10s in the stouts.

5%. That's light. You can drink it all day. I call it a Florida Stout because it doesn't, like, stay in your mouth.

You've drank Stouts before that are just syrupy, and you're kind of like, well, I'm never going to drink anything else after this, but, you know, ours kind of, you have three. That sounds about right. All right, what's your favorite beer? Favorite beer?

All time. I love this question. I used to get this question every day at World of Beer, and I was like, whatever's free was usually my favorite beer. That's a good response.

Yeah, I mean, whatever spray is usually pretty good, but I will say my favorite beer, like my go-to, easy on the eyes, I don't know, if I see it, I have to get it kind of thing. It's kind of a hard question, because like, each beer is almost like an IPA stout, like, I have a favorite stout, you can't almost compare the two. On a summer day or a nice, like, April/Spring day, like, depends, like, kind of like that, right? But, sure, Narragansett, year-round.

It's a fucking cop-out. It's a cop-out, yeah. Thanks for plugging the house beer. You're welcome.

What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? Always do better. My dad said that, 'cause I remember I lost, it was our little league final, we came in second, and we were really upset. And then I was like, what am I gonna do?

'Cause I was like a knee-high, and he's like, always do better. And I'm like, kind of took it to heart, and ever since then, if I got a B in class, I got an A next year, if I got a C, you know, you just constantly improve upon yourself. Right. Did he say it just the one time, or did he always say it?

Oh no, he had to reiterate it quite a few times. Yeah. It finally sunk in, like, oh shit. I mean, being successful is mostly about failure, so.

Right. And you gotta, you look at your fails, do better than that. That's it. Sorry, and then the last question's kind of easy.

Your social media contacts, or how people get a hold of you, or? They usually reach out via text. If you got my number, I can leave a couple cards here for you to kind of throw up if you need, but you can always hit me on Facebook, Tyler Venom. I don't really have an Instagram.

Everybody makes fun of me for it. How the fuck do you not have that? Yeah, I do not have an Instagram. Honestly...

Intuition has an Instagram. Yeah, they do. I don't. So what?

What the fuck does that mean? Like, you're missing the boat. You are aware of that, right? That's the new wave.

I can't even Facebook. People make fun of me for my Facebook. If you look, I haven't posted anything. I think it says you live in Nebraska or something.

It does. I just want you to know. It's true. Do you do classes?

Social media classes? I'm just going to wait until you guys are all fucking done. I just want you to know you can do better. Thanks.

So how do you fucking like that? Thanks, Ben. I don't understand. How do you not fucking have Instagram in this day and age, man?

I built this whole fucking business on Instagram. Snapchat's a waste of fucking time. It's not going to work for you. They don't disagree.

They don't disagree. You're not 14 years old. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, Snapchat could work.

Yeah. But it's not like, I wouldn't use that as your main anchor. No. You know?

As far as, like, the beer scene's concerned, fuck yeah, dude, you should definitely be having an Instagram. Insane. You know how we have, like, a lot of friends? One of my friends, she works for New Belgium, and she tells me every day, like, we go, we'll tag team an account together.

And she's Instagramming. And she's Instagramming every day, and I'm like, what's that? And I'm like, what's that? And she pretty much said the same thing.

She's like, you're an idiot. I'm like, you're missing the fucking boat, dude. There's some big players I know on Instagram, and it's two things. It's marketing, and your boss is gonna see it, so they know you're out there hustling.

So it's a double-weighted sword. Yeah, I mean, you know, just fucking document your day where you're going, and you check it out. It's like an Instagram. You know, like, you start building a little bit of a following, and then all of a sudden you do a pic that you're at a fucking bar, and somebody's like, oh, I gotta go stop in.

Now they carry intuition. So like, you're helping your consumer. You're helping your fucking, your customer. Where's my pen and paper?

Yeah, you should definitely. Watch the show, if you forget, watch the show later. Just go back, re-watch this. I'll give sessions for beer up top, just go ahead, you draw it in and say hey, how do I do this?

How do I do this? Right? So, speaking of events, you got an event, let me ask you guys to talk about your event coming up this weekend. Yeah, but by the time this goes up next week, the event will already happen.

It'll already, so we would have already lived it. Oh, we gotta edit that out. No, we'll let it go. That's cool.

We were just at your event. It was a fantastic event. Let's talk about that. It was a great time.

It was fucking crazy. We had free beer. We had free cigars. Stella glasses.

It was fucking to the nines. It was ridiculous. The nines? Yeah, the nines.

Legit. What does that mean? I don't know, but you know what the fuck it means. You're like, oh, I get it.

It was a big deal. It was a big deal. Everything's coming up aces, guys. Listen, here, y'all have one first time.

Bringing it back bring it back bring it back rad to Early 90s. I don't know why but I always say homie 90s clothing line cigar hustler like fucking throw kids What was the what was the pants the Jenga Jenga Jinko's I've overpaid for those kangaroo fucking back pocket. I used to have the kangaroo hat. The overpaid, yeah.

Like $90. The diesled. Terry cloth. These are awesome.

Check out these pockets that I could never use because they're all the way down by my cat. I can fit my math book in it. Exactly. I don't even need a backpack.

They were like skateboarding pants, weren't they? Yeah. Like how do you skateboarding this? Which I skateboarded growing up and you can't skateboard in those.

You can totally, first of all, you can totally skateboarding them. Nah, my God. Them pants kind of wrapped around the front of your shoe most of the time. We're gonna YouTube this shit, and we're gonna, I'm gonna show you motherfuckers, JNCO, Can we cut, this would be a perfect time to cut to YouTube, on a JNCO skateboarder, fail video, that's what you're gonna find, top hits right there, I don't even think you can find JNCOs anymore, probably not, no, you have to get them on one of the, it could be consignment stores, second hand stores, yeah, eBay, eBay, eBay, they'll be on eBay, pay fucking double for them, double, even going back before, for a skateboard skit, I'm pretty sure you can make one.

That's it. We good? You good? Yeah.

You all done? Well, I've got to keep drinking. You know, it's funny because, like, at the beginning, you were sweating. You know when the air turns off, I don't adjust quickly to the temperature.

Yeah, it's hot in here. It's hot. It does get hot in here. We shut off the air.

'Cause it picks it up on the microphones. Oh, you want to spill it. Yeah, we want you to feel the pressure. No, what happens is, it just, it sucks up the sound.

It's right behind you. It's all electronic. So it's like, you know, we can't do that. We can't do that.

Put on some heat. You should see when we smoke and there's no fucking air. No, then you can't see us either. It's like we're in the phone.

You got about 40 minutes and then all of a sudden you can't see a goddamn thing. It's like open the doors. Okay. We start hearing birds in the background and stuff.

Right. Well, hey, dude, you know, we appreciate you coming out. I appreciate you coming out. Yeah, thanks for your advice.

You're always welcome at the shop. Cliff, you know, we'll see you every week. We'll do this again. We'll find some, we'll keep this ball rolling.

Yeah, we can. See who else we can drag out. Just replace me that quickly. That's it.

You were the first. We'll bring you back. You were the first. You were the first.

And that's all that matters. You will always remember. Right? The number one.

Yeah, number one. Who was Tyler? Who was he with? I think he was with Intuition.

Was it JNCOs? Was he with JNCOs? He was with JNCOs. He was with JNCOs.

I think he was a skateboarder that wore shorts. There you go. I think he was in a failed video or somewhere. I didn't wear shorts that I skateboarded though.

No shit. And he doesn't have an Instagram. You're right. What a cool job.

He drinks beer. He's got a Hawaiian print hat. Yeah. And some flip-flops.

Well, I didn't know I was going to be on TV today. Almost as good as Asia. Yeah, almost. But his pace.

No. That's true. His defense. He didn't know.

I didn't even know we were going to be on the interwebs. So, uh. See? And you're here every week.

You didn't even know what goes on here. No. I know. I've been in the old studio.

You don't follow them? That's true. I do follow them. What's wrong with you?

Get an Instagram. You can download. I got an Instagram. I got an Instagram.

I got an Instagram. Alright. Thanks again. No worries.

All right, bye. Peace. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from the Correctional Institution. This call is subject to recording and monitoring.

To accept charges, press one. To refuse charges, thank you for using Teenetics. This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m.

for all new episodes with some of the biggest names in the cigar industry. You can follow the guys on Instagram @CigarHustlerForMikey, and @FCC_MikeForMike2. You can also follow the show on Instagram @ACigarHustlerPodcast, and on the Facebook page and the all-new YouTube channel. Please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on whichever podcast provider you choose.

Thanks for listening. The End of the day is a very good day.

Show Notes

This week we branch out to the world of Craft Beer!  We get to sample beers with Tyler Benham of Intuition Beer out of Jacksonville, Florida and with our own Cliff Stevenson of Daytona Beverage.

We hear all about their amazing Tap Room in Jacksonville, what exactly a beer rep does besides drink and how Intuition Beer is quickly becoming the craft beer of choice!  We sample four of their beers, each with a distinct flavor profile and brewing process!  All of them are just amazing!

As always we welcome your comments, suggestions and show ideas on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".  You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and "Mike Too" @fcc_mike.

Please remember to rate, review and subscribe on which ever of our Podcast Providers you use!

If you enjoyed listening to the show, make sure to catch the video version on our YouTube Channel "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast"!