Transcription of Fred Forsley for the show Maine Suds #274
Lisa Belisle: Earlier this year, it was my pleasure to run in a couple of nice road races, which happened to be sponsored by Shipyard Brewing Company, and today I have with me Fred Forsley, who is the founder and president of Shipyard Brewing Company, the largest brewery in Maine and a national leader in the craft brew industry. He also owns a number of other food and beverage, hospitality, and real estate companies. You’re just a man about town. I guess we’re lucky to have you here today. You’re so busy.
Fred Forsley: Well, everybody’s busy, right? But it’s fun to be here.
Lisa Belisle: Well, everybody is busy, but I’m not sure everybody has done all of the things that you have done. I mean, the businesses that you own include Capt’n Eli’s Soda, Federal Jack’s Restaurant and Brew Pub, the Regatta event center, Shipyard Brew Pub, The Inn On Peaks Island. I mean, holy smoke!
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I’m surprised that you have enough time off the phone to actually have a conversation with me here.
Fred Forsley: That ADD paid off.
Lisa Belisle: I guess so.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: You were born at Mercy Hospital and went to Cheverus eventually, long after you were born.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Ciampi was the doctor that delivered me, the Ciampi family was a big local family.
Lisa Belisle: Oh, yes.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, so it was Portland Maine, July 9th, 1960.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah.
Fred Forsley: It was a great time to be in Maine, I think, and grow up.
Lisa Belisle: Well, you’re looking pretty good for somebody born in 1960.
Fred Forsley: It’s those road races.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I was going to ask about that.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Tell me why it is that, as someone who has these interests in real estate and food and brewing, why road races?
Fred Forsley: Well actually, it was funny. Joanie Benoit Samuelson called 20 years ago and said, “Would you be willing to be involved in a road race?” First she said, “Do you know who I am?” And I said, “Yeah, I know who you are.” At the time, we were just getting started with Shipyard, and she said, “I’ve got this idea, we’re going to do a race. I’ve got Nike excited about it, and we’re looking and wondering if you’d be involved as a beer sponsor and donate beer to the volunteers, because a big part of the race is going to be these volunteers, and we think beer will be an exciting thing. We’re going to have some parties and that.”
Honestly, she got us … I wasn’t a runner in high school and never ran track, never was exciting about running, tried to avoid running just because I was into football and other things, but long story short, she got us excited about it, and then it just kind of grew from there. We’ve been involved coming on the 20th year with the Beach to Beacon. That led the way, and then it just starts from there. It took me about 10 years to actually finally then run the Beach to Beacon, but in the meantime we got excited about a number of other races. It’s a great way, because you’ve got active people excited and everybody wants to have a beer at the end of the race.
My daughter married a guy from upstate New York, and there was a race up there called the Boilermaker, which they finished at the F.X. Matt Brewery, and they gave out beer at the end of the race. Mistakenly I joked with her if she was running, I’d run it, and she was, and I didn’t know it. That’s in July as well, so I ran that one. It’s a 15k, which was the longest race I’d ever run at the time, and we got done and had that beer, and it was like, “Okay, we’re going to do this.” Bruce Forsley, my cousin and I, it just turned out that the Trails to Ale had been down to three or 400 runners and helped the Portland trails. Long story short, we got involved in that and together we’ve all built it up to close to 2,000 this year, so it was fun to be involved in that. They renamed it with the tagline “Trails to Ale,” so it’s been fun, and I think people enjoy it.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, and it’s a great race. There was so much … The volunteers all were very positive, and it was very well-organized. It just had a really nice vibe about it.
Fred Forsley: Right.
Lisa Belisle: I think that that …
Fred Forsley: The trail was in great shape this year, too.
Lisa Belisle: That’s true.
Fred Forsley: Two years ago we ran, and it was a lot of mud puddles, and people were upset because it rained last year. This year, it didn’t. It rained, but there was not a drop of… I think I saw one puddle in the whole thing, which really is a tribute to the city of Portland and the people that take care of the trails.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, it’s interesting because I grew up in Yarmouth, and I lived in Portland briefly, and I did a lot of running around Back Bay, which I’m sure that you have done some running around Back Bay as well. It’s been interesting to see how all of this has evolved, and how it’s really become… It was already kind of a running city from that many years ago, but it’s really becoming an actual running city.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I don’t know that I would have projected that, I guess.
Fred Forsley: Right. No, Portland, I think it adds to everything else that’s going on, the food scene and the bands, the music scene. It’s becoming, it’s a great city for people to come and experience now, so somebody comes … We have a lot of visitors, and they’ll come and go, “Where can I run?” When they run the Back Bay and they do the trails, literally from the brewery back around, they’re just blown away by the experience and how open it is. It’s also becoming a great biking city, but the reality is it’s set up from that, and the Portland trails are a big part of that. That’s why having that as an opportunity is a good thing.
Lisa Belisle: When you go out and run, tell me how that feels for you as an individual. You told me that you were really more of a football player, and you have become a runner.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. It’s a real de-stressing for me. If I don’t run for three or four days, I get short tempered, and it’s not a good thing. For me, it just releases all that kind of things that build up, tension that builds up by just business in general and life in general. By running, I think it just … I run for about a half an hour or 45 minutes, and it just is a way for my brain to just go in another place, so it’s kind of fun along those lines because you don’t have that… You get to that part where your brain just starts daydreaming, and you’re sweating. It’s obviously healthy, but at the same time for me, it’s your mind as well because it’s… In Kennebunk, I live down there, and so you can run to the beach or you can run along in front of the Colony Hotel, and you see such beautiful sights, and at the same time, you’re not feeling like you’re exercising. It’s not painful like sometimes exercise can be.
Lisa Belisle: Are you more of an outdoor runner or an indoor runner?
Fred Forsley: Outdoor. I really don’t like treadmills. If that’s all you have and that’s all you can do, and you’re in a situation where you’ve got to run on treadmill, I’ll do it, but it’s not my favorite. No. Not really.
Lisa Belisle: Well, I’m actually glad to hear that, because I’m absolutely not a treadmill runner, and I think you couldn’t get me on a treadmill unless we were in the middle of an enormous concrete jungle that had no streets.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Because I feel exactly the same way you do. Actually, even in an urban setting, I would prefer to run outside because I think it does something different with your brain and the de-stressing thing that you were talking about.
Fred Forsley: Yep, definitely.
Lisa Belisle: What I love about the races that take place here in Portland is that there’s so many different types of scenery that we see, that you have waterfront, you have bay front, you have inner city, and you can go up to the West End and they have the big mansions, and the Eastern Prom.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. If you run in the morning in Portland before the cars get here, before people get here, because it’s really a quiet city from five to 7:30 even, you can run up Congress Street and have an experience that’s just really unique. That’s one of the coolest streets. If you run the whole of Congress Street, there’s such history there, and it’s cool how a lot of it’s being brought back to life and all of that. I find that to be really awesome in the morning. I like to run in the morning too, but I don’t like running at night, just for whatever reason.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I’m with you. I’m a morning running person as well.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Do you run with someone? Do you have a buddy that you run with?
Fred Forsley: I don’t.
Lisa Belisle: Or is it just you?
Fred Forsley: No, I just run by myself so I can talk to myself, scream at myself, that type of thing.
Lisa Belisle: Do you train for the races that you sponsor?
Fred Forsley: I just try to stay in shape. I don’t train, really. I train by running, but it’s not like… I’ve got nobody instructing me. When I went to high school there were a lot of runners there. A friend of mine, Johnny Marr is a big runner, and he probably has the science of training down, but he’s not sharing any secrets with me, if he hears this.
Lisa Belisle: I think it’s fascinating. I just ran the Maine Marathon on Sunday, and I think it’s interesting to watch all the different sorts of people who run.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: You have the people who are really, they’ve got all the science behind them. Everything is very specific as to how they train. You’ve got people, they’re just like, “Well, I’ve run a few miles. I’ll just go out and just do it.”
Fred Forsley: Yeah. Well, the Marr family, actually they raised I think close to 160,000 dollars for Alzheimer’s. John Marr Sr. has set up with Josephine, a foundation, I think, involving research for Alzheimer’s, and so they actually took this race, the marathon, and they had people from all over the country come as part of their family, because they have a number of kids and grandkids. It was nice to see, and then my daughter, Jill, ran it with three of her friends this week. We didn’t sponsor anything to do with the marathon, but next year I think we’ll get involved in that some, more than we did. We helped sponsor the Marrs’ family event through my daughter, Jill, running with their group, but that was an amazing event that just happened, the marathon.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah.
Fred Forsley: The Maine Marathon, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: They’ve been doing it 25 years.
Fred Forsley: Right. Now there seems to be … It’s touching more on our lives, people we know and stuff, so we may get involved in that.
Lisa Belisle: That is the other aspect of running these races that I find interesting, that pretty much every race that I’ve been in lately has had some sort of charitable beneficiary.
Fred Forsley: Yep.
Lisa Belisle: Beach to Beacon has always done this.
Fred Forsley: They’ve done a great job with that.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, and the marathon, I think Dream Factory was their beneficiary this year. It’s interesting to run behind people who are running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. A new race we’re getting involved in is the Thanksgiving day race. We’re going to feature Pumpkinhead as part of our theme of group, and helping them expand more excitement around that. It’s in the morning, 9:00, for Thanksgiving, so that’s going to be another one coming up.
Lisa Belisle: Is that the one that’s usually a USM race?
Fred Forsley: Yep.
Lisa Belisle: Okay.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, so we’re excited about that.
Lisa Belisle: Well, how about this? What if you’re not a beer drinker?
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: What if you’re not a beer drinker and you just …
Fred Forsley: Capt’n Eli’s Soda, or we usually get Dasani water sponsored by Coke or somebody involved like that, so there’s something for everybody. Portland Pie has been a great partner, especially the Trails to Ale, giving out free pizza at the end. Who doesn’t love pizza, right? They even have gluten free pizza, but they’ve been a great partner with the Trails to Ale race. Every year, they’ve done fundraisers promoting the race at their locations and been involved in that. Yeah, if you don’t like beer, we have Ice Pik vodka. We haven’t brought that to the race yet, though. That’s gluten free, I tell you. So, if you don’t like to drink at all alcohol, then Capt’n Eli’s. If you don’t like soda, we have Dasani water. If you don’t drink at all anything, well, pizza. There you go.
Lisa Belisle: There you go. There’s something for everyone there.
Fred Forsley: Yep.
Lisa Belisle: What is it about the race day itself, the spirit of the race, that captures your energy?
Fred Forsley: I actually thought about that this morning, running. You get to run in the middle of the street, right? How often do you get to run in the middle of the street? The Beach to Beacon, when you’re running, you turn that corner and you run by the IGA there, and you see that big flag that the firemen have out at the cape, and you run under that, and you’re in the middle of the street. You flash back to that in the middle of winter when you’re driving out there. It’s just a powerful, powerful thing. Then people playing music when you’re going by, and people cheering. I think it just adds to that whole euphoric feeling. Except in the Beach to Beacon, and if you’re a little hotter, the Shipyard Half Marathon, when you’re really getting hot and you’re seeing people drop, that’s a little discouraging, even when they’re playing music that are going by.
But next year we hope to get more people involved as participants on the sides playing music on the half marathon, because I think music a lot of time can really get you fired up. You’re running in the middle of the street in an area you’d never be able to run. You run down Commercial Street in the takeoff of the half marathon. The Shipyard Half Marathon this year was July 9th, but the thing is, is when you have that many people, 5,000 people, 10,000 people with the Beach to Beacon, you’re seeing hundreds of people that you really … You might run into one or two people you know, but you just realize how big the running world is. It’s fun. At Beach to Beacon, they have world class runners, and then you’ve got people who are running first time.
Lisa Belisle: I also ran the Shipyard Half Marathon, and I also thought that it was fun to run down Commercial Street, and I loved that there was music under the bridge.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Going across to South Portland, it was kind of a weird song that was playing when I went by, but it does. It kind of gets you….
Fred Forsley: We want to have more of that. We want to try to get sponsors or somebody to do five or six of those, because when you have people involved, like the Boilermaker in upstate New York, different towns have themes within their neighborhoods that they’ve done for years, and they get really charged up to be there. It becomes a little party on the sidelines. There were some groups up near Maine Med, too, when we were running by there on that, but it was cool to run through there. Yeah, that’s fun. Go by Ruski’s and you get the guys come out.
Lisa Belisle: Yes, that was also fun.
Fred Forsley: Could stop for a Shipyard there, but that might slow you down a little bit.
Lisa Belisle: It’s also fun to be with people who specifically come to Maine for these events.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I think that’s amazing that people would be running … Even some of the people who do the 50, 50 halfs every state.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. I have a friend from Amsterdam. He signed up two times for the Hansi, he keeps saying he’s going to come. He hasn’t come yet, but eventually he’ll come and run the Shipyard Half marathon, so we’ll see.
Lisa Belisle: What is it about these longer distances that you think is drawing people in? Because I think the Boston Marathon, you actually have to apply, there are cut times, and they filled within two weeks.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: It’s crazy that people want to go out and subject themselves to marathons, half marathons.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, and you hear about these trail runners going 50 miles. We’ve sponsored some teams that have run in the Ragnar races that go through the night, and they’re in a bus with 12 people, but the reality is, I think it’s just that camaraderie. After high school or college, if you played sports or if you’re involved in activities, and then there’s nothing after that as far as groups, I think that’s why. It’s kind of a club you can belong to. “Hey, I’m a runner.” In Florida, in Clearwater, we have the Sea Dog Brew Pub, and the running club has kind of adopted our tasting room. They’ll do a run and finish there. At Federal Jack’s, there’s been a group of runners. Most of them are over 65, and they… I think it’s either a Tuesday or a Wednesday, but once a week they’ll end there and have beers after their run.
I think even though it’s an individual sport, it’s kind of like, “Hey are you doing it? Are you doing it?” Then people will team up, so it is kind of cool. We have a group of people at the brewery that anybody who wants to run any of the races we sponsor, we’ll give them free entry. At times it’s peaked at 10, 12 people, and then it fluctuates, so we try to suck in people. The half marathon was brutal on a few of them last year. The hot one, that was the tough one. We lost one driver. I think he quit after that.
Lisa Belisle: Oh.
Fred Forsley: I’m just kidding. He’s not… Anyways, it is fun though, because you get to get… We’ll go to the Porthole after for lunch, after the half marathon, and then after the party finishes up. It’s like anything you do. Why do people climb mountains, I guess? Which I’m not going to get into that.
Lisa Belisle: That’s a different show. We’ll talk about that later.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, we’ve heard the same thing, and I think because Maine Magazine has also been sponsoring some of these races, so we’ll get bibs that come in as part of the team. Some people, they want to do the 5k color run, and some people will sign up for the half marathon.
Fred Forsley: Right.
Lisa Belisle: It actually becomes aspirational for people.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Someone who maybe last year did a 5k works their way up to a 10k.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Then one of our sales guys Jeff D’Amico, he actually came and watched me do the marathon this weekend.
Fred Forsley: You inspired him.
Lisa Belisle: It’s great.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. Hopefully he’ll do more.
Lisa Belisle: It’s really great, because it all comes around.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: You support people in wherever they’re coming from, and then they come back and they support you as well.
Fred Forsley: Yeah. The Reali family that owned the Village Café, they had a tradition of, at Thanksgiving day race, they would have all their friends over to the Village after that race. When that ended, they moved it over to the brewery, so their friends and family will come after that race, and you’ll see all the next generation of runners now coming over, so it’s kind of cool.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I also like that. You mentioned running with your daughter in the Boilermaker.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I ran with my son in the marathon, and he’s 23. It’s actually really nice to be able to go out and be with your kids for some prolonged period of time where you’re not really on your phone, and you’re just moving forward, just having a conversation. It’s a really different and kind of special atmosphere.
Fred Forsley: Definitely, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I’m interested, you talk about the Village Café, and because I’m from Maine also, I ate there many, many times. How do you feel about all the changes that have happened in your home city?
Fred Forsley: I’m sad about the Village going, because that was one of my favorite spots, but I’m excited about the changes. I mean, we need more housing in Portland, whether it’s high-end condos, or affordable housing, or workforce housing. I’m somebody who loves the fact that we have these new hotels, and I think we’re going to see a lot… People want to visit Portland in the middle of July and August. You can’t get a place to stay. It’s literally, you have people staying out of the city saying, “How can I get to the Peninsula?” Because that’s where people want to be when they’re from away, and they want to experience the city.
Portland was always a working harbor. It was never a place where the beautiful sailboats were 30 years ago, 40 years ago, because in the old days if you grew up here, you remember the sardine factory on the other side that basically smelled. It was a lot of odors on Commercial Street in the ’50s and ’60s, and even into the ’70s, and traffic was going 18 different ways on Commercial Street. I would go pick up food at Carr Brothers for our parents’ veterans’ home. You’d have to be good at wheeling in there and missing all the truck traffic. Today, I think Portland is becoming a livable tourist town, and a business town. You get people that’ll come….
I had a friend come and stay in Portland, and he’d never been into Portland to visit. He’d been to Bar Harbor, been to Kennebunkport, been to Camden, but he grew up in a hotel family, and long story short, he’s like, “I can’t believe I can’t get a hotel room for less than 400 dollars on this weekend.” It was the middle of July. I said, “Come up, build another hotel, because we need more.” I honestly believe that we’re going to see another six, 700 hotel rooms and another couple thousand apartments, and I think it’ll be a vibrant city for everybody. With USM’s extended living program, I think the USM… Glenn Cummings I think is a breath of fresh air, too.
USM, I think, is a great resource for people buying condos here, but I also think you need more housing stock so that affordable apartments are available. It’s funny, people get upset with condos, but the reality is without those, you’re not going to have some of the other places available for affordable housing for everybody. I just think there’s so much potential in Portland to be a great small city. Our airport with the infrastructure build-out that they have there, it’s getting easier and easier to get in and out of Portland. I think if we’re going to have jobs for our young people, we need to maximize what’s going on, and that’s the second home and tourism industry, as well as the education part of the city of Portland, and then the medical part. Without more housing, you’re not going to get it.
Lisa Belisle: How do you balance all of the things that you do? In 2009 the Maine State Chamber of Commerce honored you with a President’s Recognition Award. In 2015 you received Sugarloaf’s Summiteer Award for your continuous commitment to giving back to the cancer community in Maine. Then I’m only reading bits and pieces of the things that you’ve done in Maine and for Maine, but you seem like you really do have a lot of different loves that you’re nurturing.
Fred Forsley: Yeah, we have great people around me, I guess. As a company, we have great people, a great family. You know behind every great man is a great woman kicking him square in the ass? Well, no. Just a joke, just a joke. My wife, Judy, has been a great partner, and she’s a CPA and very focused on detail, which I’m not a detail person. Alan Pugsley, Bruce Forsley, Paul Hendry. We have 50 brewers, so for the beer side, that, and that Jim Bunting on the restaurant side, Fred Hayman. There’s a list that goes on and on. We employ close to 900 people in the state of Maine. Luckily, we’ve had a lot of great people that work for us, and I feel like that’s the big thing that helps drive a lot of this.
If it wasn’t for the young energy in our company, we wouldn’t be trying to do a lot of things. We just hired a young kid, Woody, and Matt Bowden, both in the company. Matt’s been with us five years out of Orono. He was living in Orlando, moved home. He’s training a young man, Woody, who’s just moving to Orlando to sell, but he knows Maine culture. He knows our beers from being here and he’s going to spread the love of Maine in Orlando. We have a number of Mainers working for us in other parts of the country because they understand our culture, our work ethic, and that’s what’s helped spread the love.
Lisa Belisle: Well, what do you see for 2017? What’s coming up in the future?
Fred Forsley: We’re doing a lot in…. People think when you’re in Florida you’re not really helping Maine, but we’re going to be releasing a beer in Florida that’s brewed in Maine, Island Time, and that’s happening in November and December, but we’re doing a brew pub in Treasure Island, which is just outside of St. Pete. That’ll have a Maine connection. That’s happening next year, and then I’m actually involved in a market concept in Traverse City, Michigan, which will have a lot of Maine flair. We’re leveraging our brand, so we’re trying to grow the Maine brand throughout the country. We’ve all of a sudden hit it in the UK with the Maine brand, and we’ve done a collaboration with Marston’s, and we’re selling throughout the United Kingdom in a variety of locations, so that’s exciting for us.
We’re continuing to invest in the brewery in Portland. We’re trying to… A lot of the investments you can’t see, but recently we just reopened the tasting room and spent over 200,000 dollars upgrading everything, and that experience is really cool. Irena, and the team in the store, does a great job. These cruise ships, when people come in off that…. This weekend you couldn’t get in the door because it was just amazing how many people were visiting. The tasting room is something we’re going to keep encouraging, and then just growing the brand in Maine, where next Tuesday we’re having a celebration. October 11th up in Camden, we just opened up a new Sea Dog there. We’ve renovated, so that’s exciting.
We’re looking to continue to keep growing with our key partners. We love the fact that we have a relationship with Sugarloaf, the brew pub up there. We sell and promote through all of that, and Sunday River, at Sea Dogs, we have a great relationship there, so keep expanding upon that. The Ice Pik vodka is distilled in New Hampshire. We’re using New England distilled water, but a great partner that we’re dealing with, so we’re going to expand in New England selling that. We’re going to keep growing with the relationships in the spirits industry. We’re looking at putting… We have a key relationship with Stroudwater Distillery, in which we may distill and produce products with them and help promote their location down there. They’ve done a great job. Jeff down there has done a great job.
We also have a relationship where we’re distilling Pumpkinhead into whiskey with Stuart Littlefield up in Oxford, Maine, which is exciting because Stuart used to have his location on India Street here with Foodworks, he created it. He moved up to Oxford and he has a distillery, and he does a lot of food products, but he’s taking some Pumpkinhead and creating a whiskey out of it, so we’re going to age that. We keep going with those types of things, and we’ll keep running to try to stay in shape.
Lisa Belisle: Well, I look forward to running in the events that you sponsor again.
Fred Forsley: Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: I’ve been speaking with Fred Forsley who is the founder and president of Shipyard Brewing Company, and obviously is well connected within Maine for many things, including but not limited to the road races that I have run this year, so thank you. I guess I’ll see you out there on the trails. Thanks for coming in.
Fred Forsley: Maybe Thanksgiving morning.
Lisa Belisle: That’s right.
Fred Forsley: Yes, thank you.