0:01

This is Alcohol Freedom Finders. In this episode, we meet with Mark Wong, the founder of the Impossibrew Alcohol Free Brewing Company, who you may recognize from his appearance on Dragon's Den. after hearing he had a liver condition that meant he could no longer drink alcohol, this beer loving Durham University philosophy student was so unimpressed with the lack of buzz he got from the alcohol free beers on the market that he set out to create his own alcohol alternative. With the help of a professor from the University's Bioscience Department, and inspired by a trip to Hong Kong, where he dove into the rich culture of Asian medicine, mark has found ingredients that he says give his alcohol free beers the buzz and relaxation we associate with what he amusingly calls the legacy beer category. Let's meet the man himself.

Justine Clark: 0:51

hello everyone and welcome to Alcohol Freedom Finders. Today I am genuinely the most excited I have been because I have got my, the maker of my favorite drink ever joining us today. We have Mark Wong from Impossibrew. Welcome Mark.

Barry Condon: 1:08

Hi Mark., it's great to have you here. Justine has, literally been a fan as long as I've known her. So, yeah, I'm, and I still haven't had a chance to, to to try, imposter brew. I live in the Netherlands and so I haven't come across it as yet. But we're, we're dying to, to hear more about your story and how you How you came to come up, came up with the idea of, of

Mark Wong: 1:31

into that. I think for, you know, for those who don't know, we make non alcoholic beers that give you a buzz without the alcohol. And the main thing that sets us apart is not only that it tastes great, it looks great, but the thing that we really want to try and ace is The way that it makes you feel. And so for me, I think my, my journey started fairly early. I think it started when I was 18. I've loved alcohol, love alcohol, love drinking, love beer. It was, it was just the most fantastic thing in the world. I wanted to, I did my wine degree when I was about 19. I wanted to go into the industry thinking, you know, I can do what I enjoy and drink when I enjoy it at work. I thought, what better life is there? And then when I got to about 22 or so at university, that was when I heard from the doctors that I couldn't drink anymore, my liver was not doing, not doing very well. And it was not, not where it was supposed to be at 22. And they said I had to stop. And so faced with that, and I was thinking, well, That's not only my sort of vocation fication gone I don't really know what to do and I realize how much of my social life has been around drinking. I, I thought, for example what am I going to do after, after my classes at uni? Well, I go to the pub and meet my friends. What am I going to do after dinner? Well, I head to the pub and see my friends again. And all of those options are essentially off the table the moment that happened and you can only have so many diet cokes Right and I was admittedly never a non alcoholic beer drinker. I never saw the point of it I never really understood it. I always just like beer beer and then I thought, well, let's, let's give them a try. You know, let's, let's see how it goes. And it's fair to say that I didn't, I didn't enjoy my experience. You know, a lot of them seems to be box ticking exercises. It seems to be something that say bar operator puts in just to make sure the non drinkers are having fun, but it's not that much fun. And I'm most likely just stuck to, I'm mostly just stuck to either Diet Coke, soda water, or anything that's like, say, coffee. diet tonic or stuff like that. it was not until I met a professor at, at university is Dr. Paul Jasso. And he was from the sort of neuro, I can't remember exactly what the department was, but he was a bioscience professor at the time. And I did philosophy at Durham university, which has nothing to do with what I'm doing now and nothing to do with what he was doing. But we bonded over This idea of, you know, can we use natural ingredients? Can we use things, say, for example, like caffeine? Caffeine gives us energy and it's derived from the, it's derived from coffee beans and green tea and so on. Can we use natural ingredients like these to replicate that same feeling? Because that was the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room was, you know, yeah, sure, we are all drinking non alcoholic beverages as we're not drinking, but, you know, why did we drink in the first place? Was it flavor that got us there? Not if it was surely an important part, but definitely not the most important part on. So we sort of bonded over this idea of can we make something on fast forward a couple of years. We had a few prototypes. Got it going. I brewed in my university dorm room. That was really fun. That sort of gave me a new sense of something to do on. So I started brewing beer, started making these ingredients, working with Dr. Shazo and getting it there. But at the beginning, it was horrific. Like, especially these plants, you can imagine some very herby, planty, muddy, rooty taste that just does not tie in with beer whatsoever. And it took us a long time to get it right. But ultimately the goal was kind of simple. It was just something I wanted to be able to enjoy. With my friends that I don't feel like I'm missing out. I feel like I can enjoy my time. You can, again, you can only have so many Diet Cokes. I want to truly enjoy my time in an experience that's uncompromising. And then fast a couple of years, we grew over time winning a university competition. That was how we got our first bout of, tiny bout of funding. And I can talk more about it later on because I squandered all of it at the beginning. And then, and then using that to roll on and essentially build the business from scratch. So today, to this day, everybody that has supported us, including investors and, and everybody were our customers, everybody who's on this journey started that journey with us as customers, which is something that we're, we're really proud of. And, and yeah, that's that's where we are now.

Justine Clark: 6:02

Well that that's an awesome story. And I love the fact that you've transformed something into kind of a negative thing. Oh my gosh, I can't drink anymore, I've got health issues. Into something that's become not only your you've transformed your health, but you've, you've set your career trajectory with it as well. And I resonate with that completely because actually the reason that I'm here and the reason I'm doing this podcast and that I'm a freedom from alcohol coach is because I got to a point where I realized that alcohol just wasn't serving me anymore. It was me. It was running the show. You know, it was going through a cycle of, cravings and withdrawal. Even if I wasn't an alcoholic, it was certainly ruling my day and my weekends and my midweek and the start of the week. So now it's become also ruling my start of the week, my midweek and my weekends, but it's in, in, in another way, which is helping other people become free from alcohol and trying great drinks like yours. This is actually the first time I've tried the rhubarb. I, I kept putting it off trying it and today's the first day I've tried it and it's really delicious. I know that you do like a seasonal, a summer drink. You always have something a bit fruity. I think last year was a, there was a pink grapefruit one that was yummy, but both of the, both the products that you had that, you know, the standard products, both the IPA and the lager really kind of support what I'm trying to achieve, which is feeling good naturally. And this really ticks the box as well.

Mark Wong: 7:32

The rubub, especially it's something that we're, we're super proud of and we had it, you know, we have these limited batches that we only sort of make them for fun, really. I mean, it's, it's the economics don't really make sense because it's such a small batch but we thoroughly enjoy it. We made a triple hot IPA earlier in the year. We had a vanilla stouts last year, and as well as a sort of

Justine Clark: 7:53

I tried that.

Mark Wong: 7:55

nice. And we also had a. Yeah, for the list I had the dark red ale as well, but these are just purely fun projects that we really like having fun with. And yeah, I'm glad you like this one. This is a really popular one as well. This one's been, this one's been really good.

Barry Condon: 8:11

Wow. I mean, I could really get into the weeds of, of how you actually do this, but I'm just, that first question that came to mind was, was in the dorm that first time, you know, creating it. And, and how are you able to make it non alcoholic then at at the end of the process? Cause I imagine there's sort of fermenting going on.

Mark Wong: 8:31

It's a really good question. So. There are a couple of ways to make non alcoholic products the first one is the easiest one. The first one is when you have a fully alcoholic product and you remove the alcohol from it. So you can either use heat which is pretty much the most common way, or you dilute it. Or you use reverse osmosis to take the alcohol out. So all three of these ways involve the removal of alcohol. While it's good, it's cheaper to do, and it's simple the problem typically is that when you remove alcohol, a lot of the flavor, the sort of esso flavor profiles are stuck with the alcohol compounds, stuck with the ethanol compounds, and they get released with it in the same time. So you almost by removing the thing that Makes a special, which is, which is alcohol. You also remove a lot of the flavonoids and all the rest of the parts that make it alcoholic, but make it taste like a beer. And so, well, the good thing is a lot of companies use it because it's, it's an operationally efficient approach, right? You can turn a, imagine you turn a 5 percent beer you can remove the alcohol from it and then water it down with a malt water. So either like water or any unfermented malt water, and you can. Essentially dilute that up to three times and one beer turns into three beers without alcohol tax. It seems like a massive steal, but the problem is The quality isn't very good. So we found a different way to do it, which was which is something that we're very, very proud about and happy with is the idea that, you know, what if you don't remove alcohol at all? You know, what would that mean? That would mean that you would brew a beer, one in one out, same with a craft beer. brewery wood, brewery wood. You would go in, brew the beer, and just as it gets to the point of 0. 5, just the right amount of fermentation, you crash it with a very cold temperature, and essentially you put the yeast to bed. You put them to sleep and they don't consume any more sugars. They don't ferment any further. They don't increase the alcohol percentage, but the result you'd get is you do not lose any of the flavonoid compounds. You keep everything right where they are and the yeasts are just peacefully sleeping in cold temperatures. And that's the way that we found to do it. Of course, it's more costly to run because you're not multiplying it by three times. You're not diluting it down one in one out, which will be the similar base of what a typical craft beer would be. But. That in a way, the reason why we picked that route was because I wanted one that I could drink every day. And still to this day, since the very beginning, once we had a doc, once we had a drinkable products, of course, before that point, it was not possible. But at the moment we had a drinkable products, I still, to this day, drink impossible is every single day. And I've not broken that chain and it's, it's something that, you know, I can, I can enjoy, which is why we, we went for this route and it's been really rewarding so far because I think a lot of people are beginning to recognize the sort of quality differences in there.

Justine Clark: 11:23

Brilliant. And I, I think that, you know, you really can taste the difference. And it really does taste like a craft beer. I will definitely say that. I'm curious to know, because those of us in the alcohol free space also want to socialise and, and still feel, as you say, feel that we're included in part of something. And you've chosen to include some special ingredients that, you know, help elevate mood and, and lift the mood. How did you come to choosing the ones that you've chosen and how effective do you think they are?

Mark Wong: 11:51

It's a really good question because we face a challenge compared to most other categories. So, The categories we know say, these are called categories called nootropics, but they're very, it's a very loose term. The most commonly consumed nootropic is caffeine. So we understand how caffeine feels like when we're tired, we have coffee, then we feel more energy, our heart rate goes up, so on and so forth. Like it's, it's easy to understand how that feels. But whereas what happens when you flip it to the opposite side, what happens with sort of sedation and relaxation? It's a much harder thing to feel when it doesn't impact your motor functions,

12:28

If you're looking to take back control of your drinking, why don't you join our Alcohol Freedom Finders 30 day group program. It's a great place to start. Because we approach it as an experiment, rather than a challenge. Whereas, as well as getting a great detox, you learn the science and the psychology about why you're drunk in the first place. So whether you want to stop altogether, or just become a more mindful and moderate drinker, why don't you give it a crack? Use the link in the show notes to sign up to our next 30 day program, and you won't regret it. Because no one ever woke up in the morning and said, I wish I'd had more to drink last night, did they? Back to the episode.

Mark Wong: 13:08

because one of the key things we wanted to do was to make sure you could still drive. And by impacting your motor functions is typically how most people would recognize the feeling of relaxation is you feel that you, you speak slower. Your, your speech is a bit more slurred, you move a bit slower. That's typically how people recognize the feeling of relaxation. And so we face that challenge there of how do we. And there are a couple of routes to go about it. The first one would be getting a novel ingredient, but the problem is the regulatory hurdles are too strong. We typically can't get enough testing and not enough funding to get that going. So how do we do the second route is we will have to leverage something of nature. There are a lot of ingredients that by name, they don't, they don't really mean anything like altheanine, ashwagandha, you know, most consumers, it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. And first of all, how do you communicate that some of them work? And second of all, once you find the literature of how it actually works, and once we've tested it throughout with with the professors and some of the, with the help of Durham University at the time as well, once we've tested it out, how do we make sure that, You know, it delivers the effects that are promised because it's not as simple as just having caffeine in there straight away. And so the easiest way to describe how it works is, you know, how you have coffee and green tea. And when you have both of them, they have a fairly similar caffeine content, but yet you feel sort of more Calm and chilled green tea than it is with coffee. And even though they have the same caffeine content, you wonder why is that? And there are some ingredients in there in green tea that bring down the energy aspect, they bring, they bring you sort of into a more relaxed state and so on. So it balances out some of the caffeine. So imagine when you would be able to do taking that out and multiply its potency by 10, 20 times. Then that's where you would get that sort of relaxing feeling within the remits of what you can get through the natural world. And we didn't come up with this idea. I mean, it was from when I went back home to Hong Kong, I, I never really understood sort of Asian medicine. I didn't really get it. I was never a sort of quote unquote believer in it, but I would see that people would swear by the efficacies of them. And, and I didn't understand how that works. And it turns out when I spoke to different, you know, people, Experts in the area about it. It's that they're essentially using very concentrated plant extracts. And of course, once you reach a certain concentration with different concoctions and recipes that have been passed down in the past, then you will get something that works. And so can we reverse engineer this process and have this in beer instead as a means of replacing alcohol? And that's where that journey takes us. sort of began. And yes, we have a we have a number of ingredients in that. Individually, you look at the label. It doesn't make sense that it gives you that relaxation. But for us, efficacy is the most important. Some people would go for ingredients that say it works. So say, for example, we decided not to use CBD simply from the reasons that The clinical literature doesn't support relaxation for us, although it is a derivative of the hemp plant, that it is known and associated mentally in the consumer's mind with relaxation because marijuana is relaxing in that way. We didn't feel that it works. The clinical studies didn't support it for us, so we didn't include it, even though it would have been so much easier from a marketing CBD relaxes We chose to go for a more obscure route instead. But focusing on efficacy being the true North Star, because ultimately, it's what we also enjoy in the office too.

Barry Condon: 16:46

I love that. The, that whole scientific background and particularly then to, to, to delve into the yeah, that amazingly rich sort of deep, deep, deep. Chinese medicine history as well is, is, is brilliant. I know that for myself that can often be the one thing that I miss. I go, I, I've talked to Justine a lot about once a year I go away with the boys playing golf and they drink all day. And, and somehow it, there's sort of energy giving, even though they're sort of getting slowly sozzled, they're, they're also, they can keep going remarkably long with, because there's sort of some, some sort of energy. They're either getting it from the, from the sugar or, or there's some sort of chemical thing going on. And that, and if I was to miss anything about alcohol, that would be the only thing that you sort of think, Oh, it does give you, give you the ability to go longer. And, and just, just, you know, you can, you can go on into the night. And I, I find myself doing a few shots of expresso before, before dinner and after dinner, just to sort of stay awake with the lads. And so I'm, I'll be really, I'm really interested to hear or to, to, to find out whether having this sort of nootropic in, in a, in a beer, whether that will be the thing that I'm missing.

Mark Wong: 17:57

I think I could, I could add to that as well, if you're not, know, we could go deeper into the scientific parts of it, because I think for some of the parts that you're mentioning, you, you are absolutely right in pointing out that alcohol is not exactly a sedative and it's not exactly a stimulant either. It's a very, it's a very odd state in between the two. And it kind of depends on how the person reacts. And so, which is why some of the ingredients we've selected, the official term or the official clinical efficacy for them is called sort of. alert relaxation because it stimulates alpha brain waves in the brain by going through the blood bearing barrier. This state of alert relaxation is this balance of, you know, being focused as well as in the same time you're still relaxed. So it highlight, it's, it's the closest thing we could find that follows this somewhat paradoxical nature of alcohol. Where there is this bit of energy as well as this bit of sedation. And the reason why we selected that relaxation without that kind of drowsiness is because you can also still function responses wise. You can still function. And that to us is a really important point. And, and ultimately you've got to taste it to see, see what it's like. We'd recommend having an empty stomach when you have it and have a full count yourself to see the sort of full effects, but, but yes, it's for us anyway, we've had. Lots of great experiences with it. We, we drink sometimes, you know, it's, it's kind of silly at this point. And we sort of have it in the, like, after breakfast, we come into work. Sometimes we just go, it's a few more emails than we expected. We crack open a beer and enjoy it. And in ways where we couldn't do it without alcohol, so without alcohol and yeah, it's it's been a great experience for us.

Justine Clark: 19:32

Well, I can definitely confirm that after how much have I had, I've had half a can and it definitely mimics like no other alcohol free product, that sort of feeling in the stomach that you get when you've had alcohol, that kind of, you know, alcohol has a sort of a, I guess it's a burn or something that you can really feel it that's hit your stomach. I would say in a different way but in a you could definitely feel that you've had the social blend of the nootropics has hit your stomach with this. So it does mimic the feeling, that Friday night feeling or the relaxing feeling that you're looking for in terms of I need to change, I need something to help me change my state here. And it definitely does that. So just moving slightly from that kind of amazing product that it is, Mark, I'm just curious to know what, how you feel about being someone that's a mover and a shaker in an alcohol free space.

Mark Wong: 20:30

Yeah, I think it's definitely a humbling experience. When I, when I started back, back in the beginning, I'd say that was 2020. Alcohol free wasn't that big at the time, and the market was never something I looked into. It was simply from a personal need. So regardless of where the market was going, I was, this was going to happen, at least for me anyway. At worst cases, you know, I've just made a homebrew that I enjoy. But I think over time, it's, it's been really lucky that the market has been really receptive and this space has been growing faster than I could ever, than I could ever imagine, you know, the number of people not drinking is now at an all time high. I mean, we're looking at sort of Gen Z's and millennials closer to a third now don't drink alcohol, which is something that is, which is absolutely blowing my mind. And this also echoed my experience when I first went to university as well, because I've always been told by all my seniors that. You know, university was all about, you know, everybody would go out and drink. And, and although that still, still did happen, the ratio was a lot more, well, was very unexpected for me. I had friends that would just completely not drink whatsoever. And that would be about, it's about 20, 20 to 25%. And that was something I absolutely did not expect. And I think. With people's habits changing so quickly and it's, this has fortunately led us to a position where we've started early into a market that's rapidly growing. And, and yeah, it's definitely a humbling experience, especially in the face of some of the bigger players as well. We've got, you know, Diageo, AB InBev, Budweiser, every, every big sort of beverage corporation under the sun has gone into the space. And, and yes, it's it's great to be, you know, to be amongst. All the other brands that are, that are trying to move towards this healthier drinking lifestyle.

Barry Condon: 22:23

And and how how a big alcohol playing it, are they, are they playing fair?

Mark Wong: 22:27

I'd say, I'd say they're very, you know, they understand where the trends are going and they bank that. Essentially, they've always had their success in the legacy category. Every bit, every part of their beverage is essentially powered by one technology and seeing it that way. And that is alcohol. And, and this is the fundamental growth driver for them as, as companies and, and they, most of them only do alcoholic products. And this is. In some ways, quite an existential threat for them because imagine your core technology is no longer being adopted from, you know, being one of the most in culturally ingrained sort of technologies of the world, whether that's going out of fashion and people are no longer having it, it's, it's quite a big shift that's required of their, of their business models. And, and they are, they are quicker to adapt than previous trends. Say from beer going to craft beer, they were a little bit slower, but in terms of going to alcohol free, they've been. They've been fast, but because I think they know that this is, this is something that they'll have to do and And yes, they're, they're definitely, they're certainly trying. And in, especially in areas where smaller brands are much more difficult to compete. So say for example, in supermarkets where they would have much more preferential negotiation terms and listings and same within bars and pubs and so on. So, and of course the brand name is already very well known. People are already associating those beverages with their existing brand and Using that off launching off the back of them. So I think it's a, it's a clever move and I think they are also moving with the times, but whether they are keeping up with some of the innovations, then that, that remains to be seen.

Justine Clark: 24:07

And that's certainly not in the nootropic space like yourself, Mark. So, you know, you've set yourself aside from the beginning, which is awesome. And I just wanted to touch on for our viewers who, by and large, are either alcohol free or heading that way. What's it been like for yourself? Not, in the beginning it was something you had to do. How do you feel now as someone who doesn't drink?

Mark Wong: 24:29

Yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's certainly changed over time compared to the beginning. So the beginning was purely out of, out of, you know, lack of choice That I had to do it. But then now, you know, sometimes we still benchmark alcoholic products because our goal is to make it make our beers as close to alcohol as possible, and that would mean that we we need to be aware of how or at least be reminded of how sort of alcohol tasted like to be as close as we can. But I see it now less of a I don't have to. drink anymore. I don't feel like I have to when I go out. I can happily have an impossible or any or some other non alcoholic beers that I can just know that, you know, it's, yeah, that's, that's fine. But it's such a hard habit, like a cultural habit to change. And, and I think the mindset change is, is the biggest part of that. Legwork, you know, products certainly help, especially good products. Products certainly help. But I think at the end of the day really is, is the shift in mindset and seeing, seeing yourself going, you know, a couple of months meeting with friends in the same exact spots that you were meeting them. And seeing your social life, not only not changed that much, but also have improved for the better because your conversations are better, you know, you slur less and you actually remember some of the conversations you've had. And, and, you know, some of those parts you go, that's actually, that's actually pretty good. And so I think it's a lot of the mind, mind killer parts that, that's, that's the part that was, that was stuck and, and things definitely change over time once you've, Enjoyed different things as well.

Barry Condon: 26:07

That's brilliant. I saw on your site that you'd had the GBS privilege of going on this on dragon's den. How was that?

Mark Wong: 26:16

That was a crazy experience. And that was about, we filmed the episode about three months after the start of the business. So that was, that was very, very early and we only had about 10, 000 pounds worth of sales. Nothing was ready. The design on that was something I made on PowerPoint. Because because I spent at the beginning, I thought, well, you know, it was it was all about brand. So then I spent all the money on that we had from the competition winnings on a big, big branding agency. And, and it just didn't work. It wasn't, it wasn't something that We, we could do and it wasn't something that I liked at the end result. So I just had to make it ourselves, brutally ourselves and sort all of those parts out. And we, when I went on the episode, the whole thing was about an hour and a half long, and it gets edited down to about 11 minutes. And you don't see the dragons beforehand. You don't see them after the entire thing was one take all the way through. And it was, it was a terrifying experience. And yeah, the questions were difficult but I think the good thing was, well, even though we didn't get investment at the end, cause it was just simply way too early for them. The good thing was that they understood the mission of where I was trying to go, where we were going with the products. Although some of them didn't really understand what the product was. And I think over time, a lot of our customers helped us articulate what the product meant to people a lot more. But throughout that journey, People saw us on TV and began to understand what we were trying to do and how we were trying to bring drinking to a different place, to change the nature of social drinking. And I think that experience, you know, really gave us a positive, gave us a positive start. And, and, and, and, And yeah, I mean, I could go on all day with that, with that day, and you never, you don't see what the edit is like at the end until the episode airs, and the risk of incredible public humiliation was just always looming over my head, and I thought, I've seen so many of those episodes, where You know, somebody fumbles their numbers forgets something, and it just, that person becomes, you know, a bit of a laughing stock and so on. And I was worried. I'm like 24 at the time. I thought this, this could be the end of my personal reputation. But but yes I think, you know, God bless it when it went, it went the right way. So that was good.

Justine Clark: 28:39

Well, I mean, totally amazing. And ultimately, no publicity is bad publicity, right? And that's what's come out of it for you, which is brilliant. And I just want to touch on what you said earlier about mindset. So you just talked about having, bringing a product to market that helps people socially, but really, you know, That's what we're here for. We are all about that shift in mindset and the shift in beliefs that gets you to the point where you can do those firsts, the first party, the first holiday a reunion, all of those things without alcohol and each time you do that you, you, you flex a new muscle and the body learns that And the mind learns that actually it's pretty exciting out on the other side and there's actually freedom on the other side You found that with your product. That's awesome We'd like to ask our guests a one last question, which is what three words Best describe to you what it means to be an alcohol freedom finder

Mark Wong: 29:41

Yeah. It's a, it's a good question. And I'd say. First one is, you know, exploration it's, it's to see, you know, that there are so many more choices away from alcohol that it's not just you know, it's not just drink or not drink. There are so many more choices and I think having that explorative mindset is going to be really important. And the other part innovation and not even just on a, on a, on a sort of company or product level is not, not any of that, but it's, but it's innovating the way in which you interact with, interact in a social situation because alcohol has always been a, been a prop in some ways, and that's been sort of the only prop and can you innovate and find your own way that you can find other things to replace that sort of process. You know, behavior, action, reward, that kind of loop. Can you find something that replaces that loop and be innovative in your approach? And it could be whatever floats for, for people, you know, it could be, you know, three deep breaths or it could be any, anything whatsoever. So, but just being inventive, I think that, that plays a key part. And the last one I think is also. The last one's adaptability, I'd say. It's, it's being adaptable to different, different situations and understanding that, you know, the default response may not be the right one. The default response that we've had all throughout our lives, you know, we're a bit, when we're a bit stressed, oh, it's alcohol. Or when we're, you know, feeling a little bit socially anxious, the conversation's not going very well, or maybe that person's just made a really awkward joke. Oh God, I wish I had a drink, you know, changing some of those being adaptable in how. You approach social situations and so on. And I think that's, yeah, those, those would be, those would be really good things, at least for me anyway.

Barry Condon: 31:33

That really, really resonates with me. I mean, I, the, the thing, when I decided, okay, that's it, I'm not drinking anymore. The thing that I went in search of was how do I make this? Okay. How do I feel that I'm not missing out? And, and while you can by understanding the science and an understanding what the sort of net effect is of, of, of drinking, you can see. The net result is, is you, you lose, you know, you get that buzz at the beginning, but then, you know, the, the, the, the, the body's reaction to that is leaves you depleted in, in, in so many different ways. But there's always that thing with, yeah, but the buzz, yeah, but the, the, the the dopamine hit that you get. And, and that's the thing that, that obviously the, our. We, we delve into that a lot in our methodology that, that the, the psychology behind that and the subconscious feeling is that that's, you know, something that's, that's really desirable and, and very difficult to say no to. So if you can come up with a way of, of, of tweaking, you know, of triggering a little bit of that and then also have the sort of non alcoholic benefits that that that we all understand. You know, that that that's just, you know, the, the the Holy Grail as far as I'm concerned.

Mark Wong: 32:48

And I think you're, you're absolutely right in saying, you know, that there needs to be some, some sort of replacement. And I'm sure you guys know some more about this than, than I do. I mean, it's all about sort of, you know, behavior, behavior, action, you know, So trigger action, reward and investment, right? Like as, and typically without call, the problem is you've got a behavior of what the cue comes up, the trigger comes up and you go, you drink alcohol and then reward comes with a dopamine. And then as you mentioned, then you get the hangovers the next day. And with the hangovers that, that kind of investment where you go, well, actually that's perfectly sinking in with the cue to drink more than you just have this cycle that keeps perpetuating forward, but cutting off. The reward after an action is in the solution to the problem just by cutting off the reward. Does it mean the reward no longer exists and the reward has to be replaced with something else that that there is a clear reward, but it doesn't necessitate the retriggering of another queue. And I think true behavior change can only come from, you know, satisfying sort of kind of being aware that there are some certain human needs that we would like to address. To be met and see if we can satisfy those needs in a way that's significantly less harmful. And I think I, I absolutely

Barry Condon: 33:58

Brilliant. Brilliant. Have you? I just did say it was the last question, but I've got one that I'm just interested. I think that Professor David Nutt, have you come across his work on on on on the Gabba mechanisms and and and his working in the in the on non alcoholic spirits? Is that something you'd be interested in?

Mark Wong: 34:15

I've read up on some of his, some of his works. I think he's, he's definitely a pioneer in, in the field. You know, he's been focally advocating for sort of the, the damaging, damaging effects of alcohol and so on much sooner than I think a lot of people have. And, And I believe he's also launched his own, his own product at the moment, using sort of different various plants. And I think the spirit is a very interesting space. I think there are unique challenges with spirits. Well, there are also unique benefits with spirits that the main benefit being, you know, of course, it's, it's very. Shelf stable, so you can have it at a bars will much more likely stock it, for example, compared to beers on. Then you can mix it in wide variety of beverages that you can enjoy different tastes of, you know, if you like pineapple versus strawberries, you can still make a spirit work for that. But the difficulty is. You know, it's really hard balancing flavor, especially of spirits. There is always an innate expectation that a spirit gives you a kick that you're, you're meant to have that sort of burn when you have it. And, and, you know, that, that kind of reinforces the whole experience. So, so I think there's definitely some work to be done on the spirit side. And it's, we're definitely interested in, in, in catering to drinking occasions beyond beer itself. Beer made sense to us simply because we're a, you know, we're a bunch of people that really like beer. But, but beyond, but beyond that on a wider point, and I think spirits definitely do have something, something with them as well, that serves a unique place in people going on their journey of trying to, trying to drink less but better.

Justine Clark: 35:49

Mark, that's awesome. Now, speaking of trying Impossibru how best for our people to try Impossibru? What do you recommend they do? How do they get hold of the product?

Mark Wong: 36:01

Easiest, the absolute easiest way would be heading over to our website at impossibly. co. uk and that is I N P O S S I B R E W. And the reason for that is we don't typically go to, we're not in any sort of supermarkets bars, pubs, but we're in some of them, but not national. And the goal for that is we want to make this experience for your at home. After 5 p. m. moment and we've always been baffled at the idea that you have to carry around 10 beers from the grocery shop into, sort of, into your living room and that's, that's quite a journey. So we take the hassle all the way out, go on the website, easy to order, couple of clicks and it comes the next day. So that's, that's likely the easiest way to

Barry Condon: 36:42

And for now just the UK or elsewhere.

Mark Wong: 36:45

For now, just the UK, we're a very small team at the moment. And so we've, and, and on a side point as well, we've been finding it difficult to keep up with production demand and so on. So we can only sort of cater to the UK at the moment, but later on soon enough, we'll be hopefully in the other regions as well.

Barry Condon: 37:01

I'm there next week so I'm going to put my order in now and I'll I'll be able to taste it next week and I'll post it on the social media.

Mark Wong: 37:06

think we still have some, we still have some Rebub left and we also have a referrer friend thing as well. So you guys can, I guess, refer each other and and Yeah, that could

Justine Clark: 37:15

I have, I have referred a lot of friends I tell you, Mark. Thanks so much for being with us.

Barry Condon: 37:21

Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah, thanks very much.