Spearheading the Organization of a Community Brewfest with Jeff Norman

Liam Dempsey: We are excited to share plans for our 2nd in-person gathering. It’s your chance to meet and mingle with our Start Local community. 

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Erik Gudmundson: Welcome to Start Local. I’m Erik Gudmundson, and I’m recording this conversation with my co-host, Liam Dempsey. Liam, how are you doing this this afternoon?

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. It feels like evening for as long a day as it’s been already. I’m doing really well. I’m super excited to be here today. I’m super excited to talk with our guest.

Erik Gudmundson: Yeah. We’re off to a great start, and it’s not because we’ve been drinking, although we in our little pre-conversation, we were talking about it, certainly. We’ll get to the reason why I made that local, remark in a second. But first, I wanted to mention that we are mere weeks away from our upcoming networking event. If you need a reminder, we will be gathering at Stolen Sun in Exton on Wednesday, September 18th from 5 PM to 7 PM. Attendance is free, but registration is required.

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Erik Gudmundson: Yes, indeed. Now back to my little foreshadowing from earlier. 

Today, we are speaking with Jeff Norman. In his day job, Jeff is an architect focused primarily on residential single-family occupancy homes all throughout the mid-Atlantic region, particularly the tristate area here. But today, we’re speaking with Jeff about his role as co-founder and lead organizer of the Kennett Brewfest. The Brewfest is now in its 27th year, and the Kennett Brewfest this year will take place on Saturday, October 5th, from about 1:30 PM to 5 PM. Jeff, welcome.

Jeff Norman: Oh, thanks for having me, Liam and Erik. It’s a real pleasure to be here and talk to you guys today.

Liam Dempsey: Jeff, I am so excited that you’re here today. I have been to the Brewfest a few times. And when we were thinking about getting the show off the ground again, the Brewfest and whoever was running it was absolutely on my list of people I wanted to talk to. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Jeff Norman: Sure. It’s my pleasure.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, let’s jump right into it. I’d like to know because I’ve been attending the Brewfest for many, many years. I mean, we’re talking like over 2 decades myself, at least. So how did the Brewfest come to be? How was it started?

Jeff Norman: We started the Brewfest in 1998. It became a fundraiser for, at the time, it was the Kennett Revitalization Task Force, which is now Kennett Collaborative, and, we were looking for a way to raise funds. We had hired a consultant, named Ed Crow, who, basically had turned around Mannionc, and, he was hired to help, sort of turn around the downtown business district of Kennett Square. 

So, one of the things that he said that would be critical is that we had to find a way to raise funds so that we could establish a way to take care of that, and having merchants pay a fee yearly, happens in some districts, but it’s not the best of ideas. So, we decided, we have to throw some sort of an event to try to raise money to do this. And,I had been to several of the Stouts beer festivals in Lancaster County, and I was a up and coming fan of craft beer, and I thought, well, maybe we could follow that model and try to do a beer festival to raise the money. So that’s how the Kennett Brewfest was born.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, it seems like the Kennett Brewfest has become a model onto other Brewfest in the area because it seems like everybody’s doing a Brewfest now, but Kennett Brewfest remains among regular Brewfest attendees, one of the area’s favorites. So, I was always curious if it was modeled after someone else because they say imitation is the highest form of flattery, and, I dare say you should be flattered, left and right, it seems like. Would you agree with that perspective or, you know, has everybody been doing Brewfest for a long time? I feel like you were one of the first here in the area.

Jeff Norman: Yeah. No. I agree with that statement. Absolutely. We followed a good model. We had to change it because that was run by a brewery and had other goals compared to what we, you know, we were trying to do. And yeah. Once we became successful, it was amazing the amount of Main Street managers that started contacting us and wondering how they could throw a beer festival. So, it is flattering, I mean, if we didn’t have a good event, people wouldn’t want to copy our event. So, I would say going on our 27th year, we absolutely have to be the oldest festival in the Philadelphia market. 

Erik Gudmundson: Wow.

Jeff Norman: And longest-running maybe as well.

Liam Dempsey: Jeff, you and I talked before this call, and we talked about really just how big the Brewfest is now these days. And you shared that in the pre-COVID times, there were over or about 4,000 attendees, and you’re getting darn close back to that which makes me wonder how soon into how many years into organizing the Brewfest with all the work that comes with it?  Did you realize we’ve got a formula here, and it’s working? This is amazing. How long did you realize it wasn’t just a few volunteers trying to organize something to support the county, it was something bigger?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. I think it was probably around year 4 or 5. And Liam, when we did talk earlier, I think I mentioned to you, it was, I believe after year 5, we were uptown and we were part of the Mushroom Festival. And, I guess the measure of our success would be is that they asked us to kindly leave the Mushroom Festival. So, we thought, well, we’ll move about a month later and throw another wonderful event in town and bring the same people back to town or new people to town for the beer fest. So, it was probably about year 5, and when we knew we had to move to a bigger facility to throw the event.

Erik Gudmundson: You just hinted at something I wanted to ask you about anyway, and that is how does Kennett Brewfest supports the local community. I imagine there are a lot of direct ways and a lot of indirect ways. So I’m wondering if you could give us some more detail specifically on those benefits for the community.

Jeff Norman: Well, I’m gonna read the mission statement of Kennett Collaborative well, which creates programs and events that help Kennett Square become a more beautiful and welcoming community where we can all belong and prosper. They do that through 4 major points, and that would be placemaking events, community development, and business support. So, even though it’s a beer festival, it does touch the community in a variety of ways. 

Kennett Collaborative is responsible for what’s known as Bloom Kennett. When you see all the great plants and flowers around the downtown, that’s part of Kennett Collaborative. The Christmas parade and tree lighting is sponsored by Kennett Collaborative.

The farmer’s market is run by Kennett Collaborative. So there’s just a variety of events and things going on, that reach out to, you know, family-level entertainment. And then, of course, this is adult entertainment. And so, the fingers of the Brewfest are spread out all through the borough for sure.

Erik Gudmundson: That makes sense. And there’s also an indirect effect. Right? Because I think it does put Kennett Square on the map. It brings people to the borough that wouldn’t otherwise be there, and it gives them an opportunity to check out check it out for themselves, see what’s there, and hopefully plan a return visit on their own time where they can say, you know, hey, I wanna check out that store or that restaurant or whatever it might be. Have you heard any stories, or anecdotes that would back up that theory of mind?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. That is true. Last year, we just had 2 brothers came over from England, and they were coming to the States on holiday anyway, but, once they checked into the…they actually contacted us. And once they checked into the County BrewFest, I think they tweaked their arrangements a little bit so that they could attend. 

Boy, probably over a decade ago, we had a couple of individuals from Japan, and I’d say locally, you know, we reach as far as people from New England will come down for it. Some New York state people, you know, south as Washington DC and Northern Virginia. We have 4 breweries from Pittsburgh attending this year, so, we draw people from that part of the state as well. So, and you’re exactly right, Erik. It’s people come and then they’re just enthralled with how cool Kennett Square is. And many many of the people come back at other times of the year, not just for the Brew Fest, to enjoy the town.

Liam Dempsey: And Jeff, I’m guessing that the restaurants and hotels and the like do a pretty brisk trade the weekend of the Brew Fest as well if folks are coming from out of town, and they need a place to eat in their place to stay.

Jeff Norman: They certainly do. And we’re probably different than a lot of festivals, not just beer fest, but any festivals. We have, we definitely have a reentry policy. So you can leave during the Brewfest as long as you have your mug with you. That’s sort of your reentry. And some people choose to go uptown and eat as opposed to, you know, eating on-site. They take a break. They go uptown. They have something to eat, And then, they appreciate the fact that they can get back into the festival instead of, you know, one of those once you leave, you’re out kind of deals that a lot of people do. So, people actually do take breaks during the event and wander around town and check things out. It’s kinda cool.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. It’s very cool. I wanna ask you kind of about the business side of beer festivals, the logistics if you will. How do you run a beer fest in the sense of, do breweries pay you? Do you pay the brewery? Certainly, attendees pay a fee to attend, but, you know, there’s a lot of different things there. And I could see breweries being asked to pay. I could see them being paid. I can see them just wanting the exposure. Talk us through that. How did,  how does it work with the Kennett Brewfest?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. In the early stages of the festival, I mean, you know, going back 27 years, the people who were coming to the festival were brand new. I mean, you know, they’d been in business a couple of years. There maybe locally, there were maybe 8 to 10 microbreweries at the time, and, they loved the exposure. So, we’ve never asked any brewery to pay to attend the event. We provide a tent for them. We provide ice, tables, and chairs, and they were more than happy to get the exposure. 

But after about, I think it was year 7, and especially as a nonprofit, we became the first people that actually started, and actually we insisted that we buy the beer. And then we got very popular with the breweries. So, that’s it. They have no cost other than maybe, you know, their staff that they might have to pay to man their booth for the day, but, we try to feed them. They get tasting mugs themselves, and, yeah. That’s, I mean, that’s pretty much it. I think that’s pretty standard in the Brewfest industry, at least it is now. I don’t know of anyone who asks the breweries to donate products anymore. So, yeah. That’s how it runs.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s interesting to know how the sausage is made a little bit. I like to peek under the covers there, under the hood, and understand it. So, that’s a good answer. I’d like to ask a follow-up to that in the sense that I’m just thinking it through your answer, and I imagine, with the exposure that these breweries receive from Kennett Brewfest, you might have to select which breweries can attend because there is a limited amount of space. So, how do you decide what breweries get in the door? Because I know even sometimes from an attendee standpoint, often many years are sellouts.

Jeff Norman: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we have a limit right now. We run at about 80 breweries. And in all honesty, you know, I’ve curated a list of probably over 200 breweries that I have an email blast for. And I just let all them know on a specific date that you’re gonna… at 10 AM today, you’re gonna get an email invitation to sign up for the Brewfest. And that’s what I do, and it’s really a first come, first serve thing. 

There are certain local and regional breweries that I absolutely want to attend, and they always do. So I don’t really have a problem in that regard, but, you know, if you contact me in your brewery number 81, you’re probably gonna have to wait till next year. So, that’s…

Erik Gudmundson: some of the breweries bring some really special stuff. I know that the connoisseur session, which starts before the regular brewfest, is a limited number of attendees, and the breweries often bring some special beverages for that particular round of tastings. Can you explain how the connoisseur session started and maybe a little bit more to our listeners about just what happens in the connoisseur session?

Jeff Norman: Sure. The, I would say it was probably around the same time that we were told to move, probably in year, 5, 6, 7, somewhere in. I just had a feeling that we had to add something to the festival. We had to switch it up a little bit. And so, I came up with the idea for this connoisseur session. I didn’t wanna name it a VIP ticket. A lot of other festivals do VIP tickets, and really what that usually means is you just get in early. And so, you get to avoid lines and taste all the same beers. I wanted to do something different.

So, we decided to set up what would be known as the session, where a smaller number of the breweries that’ll be there for the day do bring a specialty beer, for that hour-and-a-half session. And in the early going, it even had a theme associated with it. Like, we did have, I think the very first year, it was all Belgian-style beers. So if you were gonna be in the connoisseur session, you either had to have already made or make a Belgian specialty beer to serve. Now that’s when I think the first connoisseur was about 150 people, and maybe 15 breweries. Now, it’s up to 40 of the 80 breweries, and, over 400 people. 

So we did some themes like that for a few years. And now, really, it’s just too hard to coordinate that. So we just ask for specialty products. It can be something that a brewery’s been aging in a barrel, or it can be a brand-new beer that you’re debuting at the Kennett Brewfest. So it’d be the first time for the attendees. They’ll be the first people to try this beer. So I don’t really pigeonhole anyone anymore into style, but it just, it has to be a special product from the brewery. 

And we, that ticket comes with lunch, and then we give the patrons tokens to vote for their favorite connoisseur beer of the day, and then we tabulate that, and we have kind of a really cool, award for winning the connoisseur. It’s actually locally-made tap handle. So it’s sort of like getting a trophy, but it’s also something that the winners can use in their brewery, and tap beer with it.

So, it’s, and the designs have been really cool and different every year. So that’s been really fun to be able to present that. And I think, it ups the Brewers games too because they think that’s sort of like a really cool thing to win.

Erik Gudmundson:  So It gives them some exciting bragging rights. I have no doubt. 

Jeff Norman: Yes.

.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, attendees also get some bragging rights because I know they are given a special souvenir glass lately as well. So, I’m not sure where that idea came from, but I recently had the occasion to pack up and move my kitchen. And I couldn’t believe how many of these connoisseur glasses I had managed to accumulate over the years. I don’t normally consider myself a hoarder, but I was very happy and excited to have all these specialty, little, little glasses around. So how did that idea originate?

Jeff Norman: And that wasn’t with the original connoisseur obsession, but we’ve been doing that now for probably at least 5 years, maybe a little bit longer. I just sort of insisted upon it. It was like the beers were too good and too unique to be drinking them out of the little plastic mug. I mean, it just didn’t seem right and, you know, that small sort of brandy snifter shape, pulls the bouquet better. There’s just everything about it. You know, you can cup it, like, the stem between your fingers and warm the beer a little bit if it’s a little too cold. It’s just part of the experience. If you’re gonna have a connoisseur tasting, you might as well have a connoisseur’s glass. And it is glass, by the way. It’s not plastic. So, for 4,000 people glass might not be a great idea. But, for that session, yeah. We love giving that glass with the ticket. It’s really great.

Liam Dempsey: They are nice glasses. Yeah. I might have more than one. 

Jeff Norman: Me too. 

Liam Dempsey: Jeff, we’ve talked about organizing the festival, and we know you’re involved in it. But how does that work? Right? We know it benefits local collaboration. With 4,000 people attending, I don’t for a second believe that they’re the only one that does all the organizational efforts. Talk us through how organizing the festival comes about these days. What does it look like?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. I’m sorry. Excuse me. So we have a Brewfest committee, that meets year-round, because we also throw the WinterFest. So, once we get finished with the Brewfest in October, we take a week or two off, and then we start planning WinterFest in February, and then when that’s finished, we start again. So, the, staff members at the kinda collaborative are obviously on that committee, and we have about 8 it fluctuates somewhere between 8 to 10, people who’ve made the commitment to meet year-round and plan, help plan the event, and we give, you know, different people have different tasks. You know, there’s an area of gathering the volunteers, and there’s setup, you know, there’s ten companies. There’s someone else who handles the music. Someone else handles the food. I handle the beer. So…

Erik Gudmundson: That’s the important part. Right? 

Jeff Norman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is actually. But, so that is the core group. And then when we have our sign-up for our single-day volunteers. Some, you know, someone in that group contacts those people, and they have, we have a pre-meeting about how your day’s gonna go, what we expect you to do, how it’s going to run. So, yeah. it’s not a one-man show by any stretch of the imagination. It takes every bit of the 8 to 10 people that we have to get everything coordinated.

Erik Gudmundson: It’s a very well-oiled machine from an attendee perspective, and, it probably helps. The attendees are all in a good positive mood. I mean, they’re there to happily, you know, sample some of your beer. So, you know, from their perspective after they paid their admission ticket, it’s all free beer. So, you know, it’s it’s hard to have upset people when there’s free beer, I think.

Jeff Norman: Yeah. I call it rented beer. We only rent beer.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s a good way to think about it. You mentioned WinterFest, and, I’m curious how that came about and,, you know, what on earth made you decide you wanted to do this a second time during the year? Because effectively, from an attendee standpoint, it’s like a smaller version of Brewfest. Is that an accurate assessment? And you can give me some background on that.

Jeff Norman: It is. Yeah. It’s like the Brewfest’s little brother, I guess I would call it. But, when, Liam and I had spoken, I had said to him, you know, it’s no mystery, When a nonprofit throws a good event and is making good money, Most nonprofits wanna find a way to make more money. And that’s really sort of how it came about. We threw around a lot of ideas for some other events, you know, that could help support Kennett Collaborative. 

And, I was talking to a wholesale beer distributor just about the event, and we sort of got on the topic about how busy October was getting because now everyone was copying our event, and they were all seem to be throwing it in the fall as well.

And then you have Oktoberfest celebrations and all these kinds of things. So he was like, man, you know, it would be nice to get a break and, like, do something between January and, Memorial Day when everything was really quiet. And the light bulb went off in my head, and I said, well, what do you think about doing a beer fest in February? And he goes, that’d be perfect for us. I mean, that’s downtime for us. That probably isn’t a bad idea. And he said, where would you have it? You know, it’s like, is there anything big enough in Kennett to hold all those people? And I said, oh, we’re not gonna do it inside. We’re gonna do it outside. And he kinda laughed.

And I said, no. That’s the way it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be an outside beer festival. And it’s been 65 degrees probably 5 of the 12 years that we’ve had it. So sometimes it doesn’t feel much like Winterfest, but, so I floated the idea on Facebook, and I had like 2,000 likes in like, 2 hours. So I contacted well, it wasn’t kinda collaborative at the time, but I contacted Kennett Collaborative and said, I think I have our second event. And that’s how it was born. And, no one wanted to throw something as large as the kind of proof fest, so we intentionally pared it down. And I think that just makes it makes it easier to handle, and I think there are more opportunities for bad weather for the WinterFest. So we didn’t want something so large that then might have people traveling in bad weather, that kind of thing. So, it’s been very successful. It’s a great little brother.

Liam Dempsey: Yes. It is. Yes. It is. Jeff, I wanna ask you a… what might be a lighter question, or maybe it’s a dark question or maybe it’s a stout question. Tell me about your favorite beer. And if you don’t wanna, tell us your favorite brewery or some of your favorite breweries, at least tell us what you like to drink and why.

Jeff Norman: I’d like beers across the spectrum. But lately, I’ve been gravitating back pretty heavily to lager. Good German lager, Czech Pilsner. You know, we’ve been sort of inundated with the hazy IPA craze or just

Liam Dempsey: Have we?

Jeff Norman: Yes. We have. And, just…

Liam Dempsey: I wholeheartedly agree. I wholeheartedly agree.

Jeff Norman: You know, hop bombs in general. And, boy, it’s just really nice to sit down and have a great hell of a slogger. And we have great breweries for that in Pennsylvania. I mean, there’s so much German heritage here. Victory, certainly one of my favorites from the very beginning. You know, they make great beer now. Locally, Bralock does a fantastic job. 2 Stones is, even though they don’t have a brewery here, they have a pretty big presence in Kennett Square with their pubs, and they, you know, they tap at least 8 to 10 of their own beers there all the time. But I like, I love Baltic Porter, which is a more robust beer, but made with lager yeast. So it’s really sort of crisp and clean. Packs a pretty good punch, though. It’s a great beer.

So, you know, I drink everything across the board. I would have to say my favorite beer of all time is, Saison Dupont Christmas beer, their Christmas Saison, Avec Les Bons Voeux, which is just a fantastic beer. It just, it pushes all the right buttons with me. We have it for every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Goes great with ham, steak, seafood, and turkey. It’s just a fantastic beer. So, if I had to pick a favorite beer or my desert island beer, it would be that beer from Saison DuPont.

Liam Dempsey: And say it one more time for the folks listening. Sorry to cut you off, Erik. We’ll be sure to link to a show note so people can buy it at their local beer distributors. Say it one more time for us, Jeff.

Jeff Norman: My favorite beer happens to be Saison, from Saison DuPont, and the beer is their Christmas Saison called Avec Les Bons Voeux, which is all the best wishes, and it’s available, the local distributors. It’s pretty readily available at, well, seasonally at that time of year, all across the region. So, it’s my favorite.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s an excellent suggestion. I absolutely love Saison DuPont. Their regular Saison DuPont beer I feel like is the gold standard for Saisons personally in my taste buds anyway. So, excellent suggestion.

Jeff Norman: I agree. I agree.

Erik Gudmundson: I see a lot of ciders at Kennett Brewfest these days as well. So, when you’re not drinking beer, do you ever enjoy a good cider?

Jeff Norman: I do. I really, I would highly recommend, if you haven’t tried it, to go to Downingtown and have some of the ciders from Dressler States. It’s a husband and wife team, a really small operation, just fantastic ciders. I don’t drink a lot of cider, but I drink their cider.

Erik Gudmundson: Very good. There’s one I’ve just tried in Kimberton that I really enjoy because I’m a dry cider person when I’m drinking cider, and it’s excursion ciders, and they’re really good too. So, another good tip for our listeners, and we could probably shoot brewery names and ceteries back and forth all day long, I’m afraid. So I’ll go ahead and continue, moving along here with the question list. 

You mentioned Kennett Collaborative and a little bit about their mission statement. Can you tell us in your own words, you know, what they do and why they exist?

Jeff Norman: They, it really started as sort of an economic, business development organization to try to get more businesses in Kennett Square. It’s a very competitive market, you know, small boroughs and towns all over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you know, are looking and trying to provide the best opportunity for new business to come to their town. And so that’s really how Kennett Collaborative started, and it’s just grown into the things I talked about. I’ve you know, if you are a business and you wanna come to Kennett Square, you should contact Kennett Collaborative. They’re gonna help you through the governmental process of going to borough county, you know, what you need to do, what zoning issues you might have, how to get yourself through the architectural review board, you know, when you wanna paint your facades or change materials on the facades of your store. So they’re a great resource for that. 

And, so the business support is one of the main things they do, but the other things, like the place-making and the community development, I mean, it’s really just about trying to make Kennett Square, you know, one of the best small towns in the county. And it does get mentioned in publications now and then as being that very thing. So, they do a great job, and we’re really proud of the work they do.

Liam Dempsey: We’ve been talking for the better part for about half an hour about your work as a volunteer. But you’re a professional architect. You’re a licensed architect. You make homes. You design homes. Tell us about your business practice. What do you do when you’re not planning a beer fest?

Jeff Norman: As they would say, I’m drawing houses. I do some small commercial work as well, but, yeah. I’m purposely a sole proprietor just because I like the scale. I like the scale of doing houses. I certainly couldn’t do something like, you know, the Business building and clock tower uptown. I mean, that would be impossible, but, and it’s, you know, it’s a very personal process. So, I enjoy that as well. You know, someone can talk about something they’d like to have in their house, and we’ll hash over it for hours. But if that same person was designing his small office building, they’d make decisions in 3 minutes, just because that time is money, and it is for them as well. So, the personal aspect of doing homes is rewarding and enriching to me. And I’ve been doing it since the, you know, early to mid-eighties and, enjoyed very much, almost as much as beer.

Liam Dempsey: So, your work is totally foreign to me in the sense that I have no idea about its scale or how much work it is. In your words, to draw a house, are you, can I ask if you’re working on one house at a time? Do you might have 2 new houses and one addition? Like, how, what is a suitable level of work for an architect?

Jeff Norman: I’m very careful about the way I take on new work, and I’m very upfront with people about when I can start projects. But I would say I have anywhere from 5 to 8 active projects at any one time, and that could be from a 5,000 square foot new house to a 500 square foot small addition, you know when someone wants to expand their kitchen or family room or something like that. So, it’s not all a massive amount of work. It varies in size and complexity. But that’s a comfort level for me, somewhere between like 5-8 projects at once.

Erik Gudmundson: Back to the Kennett Brewfest. Are you hiring, or should I rephrase that question maybe and say, are you looking for volunteers?

Jeff Norman: Always. 

Liam Dempsey: And if somebody wanted to volunteer, where would they go? How would they go about us, putting their hand up?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. You have me on the spot there a little bit, but I believe if you just go to the [www.kennettbrewfest.com], I believe there is a portion of that page for volunteer sign-up. So you can click there. You can pick what you would like to do and what time of day you would like to do it, and sign your name up, we’ll be in contact with you and get you on board, get you your special cool staff t-shirt, and, have you come out for the day. I will mention that to a brewery, I get more comments about the quality of our volunteers than any other festival these guys and gals attend. So, and you had mentioned how, well run you think it is. It’s not by accident. We have really good people. We have really good repeat people. So the people who volunteer for the event enjoy themselves, and they come back year after year as well to help run a very successful beer festival.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. I just wanna comment on that beer festival and your volunteers. I think the overall feeling that I walk away from is that it really is a community-focused beer fest, and not that I know everybody there or I talk to everybody there, but there’s a very friendly atmosphere that isn’t beer party. It really is a festival celebrating the beer, the ale. What did you think? You’d chat with people that you don’t know. Oh, what did you think about that? Oh, you got that kind of beer? Where did you find that? There’s a real friendliness to it that when I first started attending the Brewfest, I was really kinda surprised by. I thought it would be more like a big beer party, and it was definitely, I mean, there’s no children there, so it’s not family-friendly in that sense, but it is family-friendly county-focused. I was really, really surprised by that. I expect your volunteers to contribute to that significantly.

Jeff Norman: Yeah. I think so. And, Liam, you’re absolutely right. You know, it’s not just a celebration of beer. It really is a celebration of the community in Kennett Square. It’s, I could probably throw this event somewhere else, but it wouldn’t be the Kennett Brewfest. There is just really something special about the people who come to it, and all the people who help run it, and all the breweries that attended, of course.

Liam Dempsey: For as long as you’ve been running the Brewfest and for much work, as much work as it is to organize such a festival with 80 breweries, I don’t know how many food vendors, close to 4,000 attendees. You must deal with a lot of businesses and a lot of nonprofits that contribute significantly to the success of the Brewfest. Can you name a business or a nonprofit that more folks should know about?

Jeff Norman: Oh, well, certainly a business would be, Waywood Beverage right here in Kennett Square. I have a lot of great volunteers that help run the event, but the Brewfest Kings, number 1 on the list is, Waywood Beverage. I mean, we could not do the event without them. From the holding beer that gets delivered to them for the festival, they bring the beer the morning of the festival. They break it all down at the end of the day. They deliver ice all day. I always under-order ice, it seems. So I’m always on the phone with Waywood Beverage saying, can you guys bring, like, 25 more bags of ice? And they bring it right down.

So, and they’re the perfect business to be part of the Kennett Brewfest. So, I know tons of people who taste something at the Kennett Brewfest, and afterward, they head right to Waywood Beverage. And, you guys have been in there, I’m sure. I mean, the selection’s fantastic, so they’ll most likely have it. So, they get a special shout-out from me. 

And then we’ve had, we’ve had people like Servpro, give us volunteers at the end of the day. Liam, I talked to you. That’s our toughest volunteer slot. Everyone wants to help set up, and they wanna put their time in, and then they get to enjoy the festival. So breakdown is always a challenge to get enough volunteers to do that. So, they volunteer part of their staff to help clean up, which is just tremendously important at the end of the day. 

And then we have a, I’m sorry. Then we have other nonprofits. Kennett Run usually sets up a tent. I’m sure we’ll talk about it a little later. 

Ales for ALS will have a tent there, another nonprofit organization. So, they do like to attend. That’s for sure. So it’s not always just vendors. They’re selling their goods. We do have organizations that like to set up because they know there are gonna be a lot of people there, and they get to talk to people about what they’re doing to help the community. So, it’s all good for everyone.

Erik Gudmundson: There are so many moving parts to the Kennett Brewfest, and it really does have a culture or personality county itself that really, you know, is so friendly to the community. And I think that culture is very consistent with your personality in the sense that, you know, we can see that your thoughts and your vibes, if you will, really run through the Brewfest. But I have to ask after hearing Liam mentioned all the things that you do, why volunteer for 27 years? 27 years is a long time to stick around with an organization and specifically, one event within an organization now that’s blossomed into multiple events within that organization. So, 27 years, how, what’s your secret to success for surviving and still being just as passionate about it now as ever?

Jeff Norman: Yeah. I mean, I just love it. I mean, I love doing it. I don’t wanna sound boastful, like but it sort of comes easy to me to run this event. I mean, if you know the importance of something and you enjoy it as much as I enjoy it, I sort of can’t imagine not running the beer festival. So, it’s really easy for me to keep going. Certainly, the success of the event makes it easy to keep doing it. 

I had told Liam, you know, the first two years, it was, like, pretty low attendance, and it didn’t really live up to my expectation of what, how I thought it was gonna start. So it could have been 3 years instead of 27 years. You know? You just never, you just never know. But, we stuck to it, and, it’s important. You know? I didn’t grow up in Kennett Square, but Kennett Square is certainly my home, and it’s my family’s home. And, I think everyone should volunteer. You know, everyone should pitch in and do something. So this is my little way of helping.

Erik Gudmundson: How does the borough of Kennett Square support the event? I know with different changes to real estate in the borough, the Brewfest now takes place at the borough’s offices, but, how does the borough help?

Jeff Norman: Well, this might seem like a flip answer, but the business answer is by allowing us to have it. Let’s face it. It’s a beer festival. I mean, some governmental agencies might have a lot of trepidation about it, but kinda burrow knows we run it the right way, and they’ve actually been nothing but supportive of the event. From, you know, there have been years where we might have donated something back for the police department, but they offered policemen for the event. They come in at the end of the day, like, with the street sweeper, and help clean up the parking lot, especially before they own it. They were a huge help in that regard. So the, you know, the maintenance staff at Kennett Burrow pitches in. So they’ve been great. I mean, just fantastic. And, I think we’re lucky in that regard. I don’t you know, I think, a lot of areas might wanna do something like this and certainly might not get that level of support that we get.

Liam Dempsey: Jeff, I wanna I wanna ask you about a nonprofit called Ailes for ALS. You and I spent some time chatting about them, in advance of this conversation. Wondering if you can tell us what a little bit about Ales for ALS. What is it? What does it do? And then I’d also like you to touch on if you’re comfortable doing so, why did you get involved with them.

Jeff Norman: Ales for ALS is an organization that raises money for ALS TDI, which is their leading research department in Massachusetts. It goes back to there’s a very large Hop farm organization in Washington State. Yakima Chief and the family that owns Yakima Chief, unfortunately has the familial gene connection to ALS. There are 2 types. There’s familial, which is, triggered by a specific gene, and then there’s sporadic, which no one knows why you got ALS, but you have ALS. So, their family got in touch with ALS and said, look. We’re gonna donate hops until we run out of hops. But we formulate a hop bill every year that has about a blend of 6 different hops.

Any brewery that wants free hops to make an ale for ALS could just contact us. We’ll ship the hops out to you. And for every pint of beer you sell, all we ask is that you contribute a dollar back to ALS TDI, the research branch. And so that’s the background of the organization. I forget the last count. There’s 100 or maybe a couple of 1,000 breweries even worldwide doing it.

So, my involvement, as if I didn’t have enough to do with the beer festivals, is that my sister was diagnosed with ALS in 2020, and she passed away in 2022, just a few months shy of 2 years after her diagnosis. And one of the things she said to me was, you know, I hope, you know, when I’m gone, you can at least we had done some fundraising for her. So, we helped them financially through her time with ALS. She said I hope you can continue to try to help other people. And I thought I would really like to do that, but I wonder what’s the best way I could do it. 

And then one of the breweries, mentioned to me that he knew about my sister, and said, do you know about Ales for ALS? And I hadn’t known. I did not know what they were. So I sort of contacted them out of the blue and talked to their Executive Director. Well, I sent them an email, actually. And I said, look. You don’t know me, but here’s what I do. I have a brewery list of 200 to 250 breweries, told them my sister’s story. Then I went on their website, and I looked at all the participation across the country. And in 2022, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware combined had 6 breweries doing Ales for ALS. So I told Mike Shannon, the Executive Director, I think I could help you guys out. So, in 2023, we had 36 breweries participate fairly locally in Ales for ALS. 

And this year, we’re on pace to be right around that same number. It might be as high as 40 for this year. So, it’s just another opportunity for me to sort of well, I kinda fell into this organization, but, you know, I knew I had the background that I could do something positive and help that cause.

So, that’s my involvement. I invite them to come to the beer festival every year and set up a tent so that they can talk to people about ALS, and probably more importantly, talk to the 80 breweries and try to figure out why you’re not participating in Ales for ALS because you should be. So, the hop blend was fantastic last year, and I’ve probably tried about 8 to 10 of the local ones, and just great beers. I mean, it’s, you know, who doesn’t wanna drink a beer for a good cause? And the ALS TDI Institute is doing some great things. And Mike has told me there are some new experimental things on the horizon that look very promising. So I’m gonna keep doing this too. You know.

Liam Dempsey: And thank you for doing so. Thank you for doing so. Jeff Norman, Founder and Lead Organizer of the Kennett Brewfest. Jeff, in addition to maybe catching you at Stolen Sun on September 18th, or maybe seeing a glimpse of you as you rush here, there, and everywhere at the Kennett Brewfest on Saturday, October 5th, where can listeners connect with you and learn more about the Kennett Brewfest?

Jeff Norman: The easiest way is to go to, obviously, the website. And, again, that’s at [www.kennettbrewfest.com]. The other really easy way to get more information or try to get involved is to go to the Kennett Collaborative website. That’s very helpful for information, and it’s also a great way to get involved with the community if you contact them. 

So those are the two major points of contact and go visit breweries. Ask if they’re attending the County Brewfest, ask what they’re bringing to the Kennett Brewfest. And that’s how you learn more about the event, basically. So…

Erik Gudmundson: Jeff, thank you so much for sharing all your insights today on not only the Kennett Brewfest but also the Kennett community and Kennett Collaborative in general. Thank you for your time today.

Jeff Norman: Thank you, guys. It’s really a lot of fun.

Liam Dempsey: And thanks to you folks for listening today. We appreciate your time and your attention to this conversation. We really do hope to see you at the Stolen Sun and definitely hope to see you at the Kennett Brewfest. 

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Thanks so much. Until the next time. Bye for now.