Beverage Chronicles Inside Oakwell Beer Spa's Craft Beer Taproom and Hydrotherapy Suites with Jessica French and Damien Zouaoui Gary Monterosso runs through the latest sales rankings across seltzer, energy drinks, craft beer and ready-to-drink cocktails before Katie Johnson sits down with Oakwell Beer Spa co-founders Jessica French and Damien Zouaoui, who explain how a rainy day in Poland turned into a Denver taproom-and-spa concept now expanding nationwide through franchising. A Rundown of Recent Beverage Sales Gary Monterosso opens the show with a rundown of recent beverage sales figures covering data through roughly the end of June. In the non-flavored sparkling water category, San Pellegrino leads, followed by Topo Chico and Maison Perrier, while Sparkling Ice tops the flavored seltzer market. Red Bull remains the top-selling energy drink ahead of Monster, and 5-Hour Energy leads energy shots. Gary notes that Starbucks cappuccino sales topped two billion dollars over the past year. In craft beer, New Belgium leads, followed by Sierra Nevada, Blue Moon and Sam Adams. Gatorade dominates sports drinks with more than seven billion dollars in sales, ahead of BodyArmor and Powerade. AriZona narrowly leads canned and bottled tea over Pure Leaf and Gold Peak, and Gary mentions Pure Leaf's new Mental Focus line, a sparkling brewed iced tea with naturally occurring caffeine. He closes the segment by noting BuzzBallz has driven roughly half a billion dollars in ready-to-drink cocktail sales. Meet Oakwell Beer Spa's Founders Katie Johnson introduces the interview segment, noting that Gary Monterosso has prepared an edited version of a longer conversation available in full at beveragechronicles.com. Jessica French and Damien Zouaoui, married co-founders of Oakwell Beer Spa, introduce themselves and describe their business as a social day spa that pairs private spa suites with a craft beer and wine taproom. They explain that Oakwell currently operates two corporate locations in Denver, Colorado, after opening a little over five years ago, and that the company has recently begun expanding nationwide through franchising. Asked to define the concept for listeners who have never heard the term beer spa, Damien describes Oakwell as combining an urban jungle taproom featuring ten taps of beer, wine, cider and nonalcoholic drinks with four private spa suites. Each suite includes a sauna, a rain shower and a hydrotherapy tub, giving guests ninety minutes of private access built around beer-inspired relaxation. From Corporate Careers to a Rainy Day in Poland Jessica French and Damien Zouaoui trace Oakwell's beginnings to their years working corporate jobs in New York City, where they met, married and began plotting an eventual business together over pints of beer and glasses of wine. A month after their wedding, the couple decided to take a risk before responsibilities like children and mortgages arrived. They quit their corporate jobs, sold their belongings, packed two backpacks and set off on a round-the-world trip, vowing not to return home until they found a business idea worth bringing back to the United States. About halfway through more than a year of travel across twenty-five countries, they reached Zakopane, a town in the Polish Alps, and ducked into a beer spa on a rainy day after spotting it on TripAdvisor. Soaking in a tub of hops and malt beside a free-flowing keg of cold Polish beer, Jessica says they knew immediately they had found the idea they wanted to scale back home. What Makes Oakwell Different From Other Beer Spas Jessica French explains that while a handful of other beer spas exist in the United States, most simply copy the Eastern European model, complete with shared bathing rooms and a bed of hay for guests to lie on after their soak, a feature she says she never found relaxing. Oakwell, she says, is built differently: it pairs an expansive taproom and lounge, where guests can relax without ever booking a private suite, with individual rooms featuring an infrared sauna, a rain shower and a hydrotherapy tub. Jessica also points to Oakwell's zero-gravity massage chairs, high-tech robotic seats that deliver a full massage without human touch, as a distinguishing feature that appeals to first-time spa-goers, particularly men, who might otherwise feel intimidated walking into a traditional spa. She describes other American beer spas as smaller, single-location operations often aimed at tourists looking for a novelty photo opportunity rather than the fuller taproom-and-suite experience Oakwell offers its guests. A Guided Walk Through the Spa Experience Damien Zouaoui walks listeners through a typical visit. Guests check in to music ranging from bossa nova to French and Japanese pop, show identification since alcohol is served, and are led into the taproom to sample beer, wine or cider poured from the ten-tap wall while conversation cards on the table encourage couples and friends to talk instead of checking their phones. A staff member Damien calls a beertherapist then helps each guest choose a seasonal hydrotherapy bath infusion, from an energizing IPA blend with lemongrass to a calming amber infusion with eucalyptus. In the private suite, Damien recommends a fifteen-minute sauna session followed by a cold shower before soaking in the hops-and-barley tub, which he describes as acting like aromatherapy. Guests can call for room service, then cool down with water before finishing with a zero-gravity massage chair session, backed by NASA-derived technology, that scans the body and targets pressure points for fifteen to sixty minutes to close out what Damien calls a three-hour staycation. On Tap: Local Beers and House Brews Jessica French describes Oakwell's house beer, Spa Sidekick, a cucumber lemon gose made with in-house pressed cucumbers, real lemon peel and Utah rock salt, which she jokes is basically cucumber spa water. Beyond that year-round pour, Oakwell keeps five rotating taps sourced entirely from local breweries, drawing on Colorado's more than four hundred craft producers to always offer something light, something fruity, something sour and something hoppy, with malt-forward porters and stouts added in winter. Five additional taps cover cider, a wine spritzer, and a red and white or rosé wine. Jessica notes that every beer on tap stays at seven percent ABV or lower, a deliberate choice given Denver's altitude and the number of tourists arriving from sea-level states before sitting in a sauna or hot tub. She recalls one early day without an IPA pouring drew enough complaints that Oakwell now makes sure an IPA, and a full variety of styles, is always available.
