The Now What Show || Handmade Seller Magazine

Elaine Kinney: "So when I first started making soap with beer I was just buying it off the grocery store shelves and it was a great thing marketing wise to be able to tout that I’m using these other small businesses these breweries in my soap. But when it really started to change somewhere along the line.  I realized that I could be using brewery waste specifically to make my soaps as opposed to just buying directly. That became a new more sustainable way to support other small businesses and boost my own small business’s sustainability. It started back- I think it was Lone Pine brewing that first reached out to me.  There was a gentleman that was working there and he had 3 cases of past code beer. It is essentially just beer that is- There’s nothing really gone wrong with it because it’s still has it’s sealed and its has alcohol in it. So It’s not going to go bad but the flavors – It’s more of an overstock. The flavors have just passed their fresh point. They don’t really want to sell it anymore because it’s just not quite as good to drink but also don’t want to dump it down the drain. So this gentleman had reached out to me with these cases of beer and said you use beer in your soap. Can you use these and I did. I was like I have to- I have to jump on this opportunity. So I was using this passcode beer for a little bit. I didn’t even realize what an opportunity I was sitting on at the time. I didn’t realize how common this production excess was. But since then I’ve decided to try to shift all of the beer that I use for soap to be sourced from this production excess specifically."

Amber Christian: "So now when when we think about and kind of talk about how do you start to source and do those collaborations with the breweries starting to provide the product. Do you wait for them to reach out to you? Do you reach out to them? How has that process evolved for you from that first time you did it into something that you’re more regularly doing."

Elaine Kinney: "Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s a little bit of like a stumbling process as you learn these sorts of things right? Especially as a small business owner when you go into things and you’re like I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m going to just get out there and try it. So like I said this first opportunity they approached me- it was I think a dm on my Instagram so it can be as informal a setting as that and just following that through. Since then I usually approach with an email- I will go on the website and usually I have like something specific in mind I want to make. For example, I have a lemongrass shea and IPA soap. So I specifically need an IPA for that one because it fits the name so I usually go online and find either a brewery that’s a favorite of mine, or just one I’ve been looking forward to trying, or one I’m excited to work with, or a customer has requested and I will reach out to them just via email and say hey this is my business. This is what I do.  You give them your little elevator pitch and an email and say I would love to work with you. Do you have anything that fits these parameters and do you have any short fills or do you have these pass code beers that are overstocked that you need to get rid of anyway?  I would love to work with you and usually it’s as simple as that. That’s really how I approach it. I’ve had a couple breweries approach me like I said first but it’s kind of a finding each other thing and sometimes you know sometimes it doesn’t fit. Maybe they don’t do a vegan beer. I have a vegan business so it has to be within that parameter. So maybe the beers they make aren’t vegan and I find that out so I move on to the next one sometimes you get ghosted everyone in small business knows it and business knows you can send out emails and never hear back. So it’s really a mixture of those interactions and just keep pushing out and reaching out to people and pursuing sometimes. I walk right into the brewery which is always a little scary and just approach whoever’s behind the bar and say hey. This is my shtick like can I talk to whoever’s in charge of this I would love to work with you. But I think what’s really motivating to me is that we’re all members of this small business community right? So I really want to be interacting and building those relationships."

Amber Christian: "Yes, that’s got to be fun every once in a while seeing the look on the face of the person behind the bar when you’ve cold walked in and said hey I am really interested in making soap out of your beer can I talk to someone?"

Elaine Kinney: "They never expect it. Never expect it. Yeah, absolutely."

Amber Christian: "Like well that was not on my bingo card but yet absolutely memorable and cool that you show up to collaborate with them because they they get human side of it too. For brands is sometimes we can say oh well we shouldn’t approach them. Sometimes it’s a huge blessing for you to approach them and they’re actually really open to it. They just never thought about it before and so it can be a really beautiful thing to approach them to collaborate with it now."

Elaine Kinney: "Um, yeah. Absolutely."