Karbach: Great American Bottle Share

Bud Light?!

I kid...

 

When is this? I didn't get the email (I guess cuz I didn't go last year?)

Also how was it last year? Worth it?

 

How does one sign up for this?

 

I'm a dumbass and forgot Monday is a holiday. Growler is being delivered on Wednesday. #Ifail

Guess I have to find something else.

No BA 9k growler

 

I will be their and got a couple of funky beers that I will be bringing

FW cherry saison
CS WWBViolet

Is their any specifics that I need to know, glassware, food, bottle waters, get their early, skip work the next day,

Can't wait

 

I believe a food truck will be present. They provided glassware last time, as they have a crap ton of tour glasses, but I always bring my own to stuff like this. I don't want to confuse my glass for one of the other million glasses that look the same.

The wife and I are bringing a Dark Lord '13, Imperial Biscotti Break, and something else? Still haven't figured it out.

 

I volunteered up there on Friday night for the first time in about 6 weeks (just been too busy)... and well... let's just say a lot of things have changed with the hiring of an actual event manager... I'd be surprised if you see this happening again... the ship has very much been tightened up..

can't say i blame them, tours previously were not all that "managed" (not to knock on the previous manager, as I think he was a great guy and I much preferred his method)... and the new coordinator will definitely increase the profitability of the tours/open housings... but it just wasn't as much fun, at least not for those of us volunteering...

I don't think you'll see Karbach inviting people to their building again to bring in non-Karbach beverages (especially if it's outside the letter of the law - not sure about that one, but if someone knows more and wants to elaborate)... hopefully i'm wrong, but.... anyway...

 

If it's not fun for the volunteers, people will quit volunteering. Making money is great, but tightening the ship so much to profit that you lose the free labor it will probably bite you in the ass.

 

As someone with an education and a full-time, well paying job, I completely agree with you. I may not be going back to volunteer there, as it wasn't as much fun as before... When I spoke with a couple of the retirees after the shift, they seemed to have a similar position.

However, I know that Karbach has hired some of their employees basically because they were there volunteering at every tour and showed a great enthusiasm for their brewery... so to some not as fortunate as myself who someday dream of working at a brewery, they will probably continue to go... and then there will be those who didn't volunteer there before the new rules, and they will probably enjoy it, not knowing how it used to be...

so in the long run, I think it will profit the brewery more in the long run... and I get it, it had to happen sooner or later. The tours could be a lot more profitable than they were. Karbach wants to be a national brewery (or at least so I think), and this is a step in that direction...

Just like I don't think you'll see them selling that huge 20 oz snifter or massive weisse versa glass anymore... I'd say they're GABS will go the way of the do-do... too bad, I never got to make it to one...

 

I'd love a 20oz snifter from Karbach... lol

 

I'm not sure I see the value in a brewery the size of Karbach hiring an event manager. I'd love an insider to talk about the decision. It seems to me that in order to make tours much more profitable, there'd have to be massive changes that, in the short term at least, would be negative for Karbach. And any marginal gain in tour profitability would be swallowed up by the cost of actually paying said event manager. (And benefits, etc, assuming the EM is full-time.)

So that means that in order to actually generate profit through this decision, the EM would need to deal with a lot more than just tours. Karbach would have to become a frequently-used event space.

I'm not sure I see this happening if they charged enough to turn a profit. The last time I was there (though it's been several months so correct me if I'm wrong) it was a bit... rough. Not the kind of place that would demand profitable rentals for events.

 

Have they had more than 2 bottle shares? The first was Oct and there was another in May. Did I miss one? Regardless of how far apart they were, 2 isn't really a large enough sample size to determine a pattern.

 

I will tell you that there have been some massive changes, that a lot of people haven't noticed if they weren't volunteering there prior to the changes. I don't really want to elaborate on them in a public forum, as the brewery has (and still does) treat its volunteers very well - however if you want to talk about them in private, BM me.

Other than that - Karbach is actually a more frequently used event space than you think... I don't know if you realize it, but the tour on Friday night usually does 200+ people (mostly frat boys priming up on their way to midtown or the washington corridor), and the saturday tour easily sees 300+ people, frequently breaking the 400+ barrier as of late... Their Monday tour does a lot less, but I've only been up there 2 times, and that was months ago now. The brewery also rents out the space 1-2 times a week (usually) for private "tastings" and other special events... I can see a bunch of ways that an EM will pay for his/her own salary in no time... just in terms of volume of beer saved.

And your right... it was a bit rough... however it has been getting progressively better since the start of 2013 and they are planning on improving it further... however I did hear it through the grapevine that they may actually be building a new bar outside and the current inside space will be off limits for tours... which i don't think is a great move personally, but we'll see what happens... I am guessing they need to inside space for additional fermentors or packaging equipment....

Anyway... back to the point of my posts... I don't think you'll be seeing anymore GABS at the brewery... but I hope I'm wrong....

 

Yeah on this I'm simply wondering how they can add more value than what they already have. From what I could find from various job websites, the average EM salary is $47000. That doesn't take into account employer payroll taxes, benefits offered, the cost of maintaining an office area, and the opportunity cost of putting more beer production into that office area.

If there's 200+ people on Fridays and 300+ on Saturdays without paying an Event Manager salary, how much growth do they anticipate to be able to pay it? Let's say the profitability of each tour is improved (for Karbach) by a factor of 12.5% of the $8 tour price, an extremely generous improvement (and wonderfully for this example, $1 per person). That would work out to 500 dollars extra per week, or $26000 per year if they operate every week of the year. Again, that's assuming a rather large improvement in profitability of tours, and that's not even close to enough to cover the cost of hiring said EM. And with every dollar of increased profit, without raising tour prices, it becomes harder to further reduce margins. We have no idea, for instance, if they're already close to maximum profitability (which is likely).

The formula in my head is: (Future Revenue - Current Revenue) > Cost of Extra Employee + K

Where K is the amount that makes the headache of another employee, changes, etc, "worth it."

I have no doubt that the Karbach guys are shrewd business minds; this has already been proven. I'm sure that there must be grand plans that call for (and in fact need) an event manager. I'm just confused as to what they could be.

 

I think you'll see an event manager has other usefulness. In my experience that person is going to be in charge of running the show for all the festivals, beer dinners, tastings, and other outside the brewery events that go on. You free up your employees that previously had to spend time going to these events to do work in the brewery, therefore increasing the productive hours you get out of those employees.

 

Yeah this seems much more likely to me than any alternative.