Jester King Craft Brewery

Let's erase hate. COEXIST.

 

So who's coming tomorrow? Cause I'll be there no matter what. I've got a craving for some Jester King & pizza.

 

Opened up a Salt Lick the other day and definitely oozed out...GOODNESS!!!!!!! So freaking good. I'll have to send some to a trading partner in California so they can see what else JK has to offer.

 

I used to work at a quick oil change place back in college that did inspections. As long as your inspection sticker and registration stickers are displayed clearly you do not need a windshield.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be there!

 

Did tomorrow at Jester King actually become a thing?

 

It's enough of a thing. I'd love to come, but... gas, driving, maybe work. blech.

 

I may be able to make it. Will there be a bottle share? If not, we can probably do one afterward at my place.

 

I was thinking, if they do a brewery release, are they going to sell tickets? Isn't there a max number of people that can be on the premise? Wasn't that an issue with the first anniversary party?

 

I believe it was like 700 tickets, though...

 

They can do sessions.

 

I don't know that it became a "thing," per se, but I, like Lutter, will be there regardless of what everyone else is doing.

 

I've just started doing a little research on bottle releases. I've actually never been to one. What are some good tips to make sure it runs fairly and efficiently? Thanks in advance.

- Jeff

 

From all the Chicaagoland examples I've seen I've learned one main thing: no matter what happens people are upset and complain with how they are handled. Even some of the best run events I've seen have loads of criticism. big things that are important to me though is food being available, some sort of consolation (like great stuff on tap) for those that inevitably don't get bottles and a clearly articulated system that is outlined before the event so everyone knows what to expect.

 

Man, I dunno... It really is an unknown how many people will show up. Locally, Scott over at Freetail doesn't do presell tickets for Ananke Day and instead hands out tickets when you people arrive, basing bottle count on how many people show up. Hunahpu Day is similar with wristbands given out for free at the event with a limit on the amount given out, and thusly people have to show up at 5am or earlier nowadays (and it turned out to be a real cluster this year)

Something bigger like DLD presells sessions where you line up (and includes glassware, live music, and a beer festival type atmosphere while you're waiting)... but that has thousands of people in attendance.

How you do it just depends on how many people you think will show up.

 

I'll probably just be there for JK tomorrow afternoon, as I have to work at 11pm tomorrow night and it's generally frowned upon to do accounting for a Multi-million dollar business completely hammered.

If you want to do something on Sunday at your place, I'm all for it though. I've got your can of ball beer for the podcast and plenty of Colorado fermented treats.

 

I thought that Ananke day was very well-handled. Of course, the things that stick out in my memory are the more negative things, so I'll list those:

• There was a bottleshare up until 11am, which was when the bottles were set to be released. Once the time came to get in line, bottles started being thrown away with very little warning. Of course, they had to make room for their customers, but some more warning would have been nice. Depending on when you do this, I'm not sure how many people will want to be there on the day of the release, but not be involved with the release itself.
• As people arrived at the event, they were given numbered tickets. When the final headcount was taken, a bottle limit was devised and a line formed. However, the line was binary--if you had a ticket, you got into it, if you didn't, you didn't. Instead, perhaps we could either have groups, à la Dark Lord Day, or just stick to straight numbering. The reason this mattered was that, once the line had been exhausted, people were allowed to go to the back of the line to get the remaining bottles--with this system, people who came in later could easily have gotten more bottles than people who came in earlier.
• Make sure that your staff don't steal Rubio's custom glasses. There will be hell to pay.

Aside from that, some things that helped to make it a good experience:

• Generally, very nice and friendly service that was very willing to put up with ~130 drunken people early in the morning. I don't think you've got to worry on this front too much.
• Awesome food helped to keep everybody happy. Again, I think that Stanley's has got you covered here. More firepower wouldn't hurt, though, given the volume.
• Even aside from the Ananke release, there was a TON of great stuff on tap, and for pretty low prices. They had kegs of WBADPP, '12 Ananke, '13 Ananke, Peche'cus, and a bunch of other delicious stuff around. This was really great at Freetail because I'd never had the opportunity to have anything from them before. This is clearly less a problem for you guys, but I'm absolutely positive that it would be really appreciated. [size]cough RU-55 cough[/size]
• The bottle limit was determined by rounding (# bottles)/(# people) down to the nearest integer. We were all sad that the bottle limit was only 4 at Ananke day, but it's the fairest way to do things. This was made known well in advance, and the cutoff time was as well.

Sorry for the novel... hopefully there's at least something useful in there. Whatever you guys do, I trust that it'll be great.

 

If there's a line process it would be helpful to have it broken up into groups of 25 or whatever instead of 1 long line. Pre-sale tickets are kind of annoying to me. Because then you people who may try to get their hands on more than one and scalp them. And I hate the idea of people making money off of things like that. I'd prefer to just show up and get a wristband or something and have it marked when it was redeemed.

You probably have a good idea of how many people show up for a typical Saturday, but maybe something like what Austin Beerworks does with an online RSVP would give you a better idea of how many people would show up.

Looking forward to whatever you decide to do.

 

I think I like the idea of pre-sale tickets if it was handled like DLD, where only the person whose name is on the ticket can use it. This also will guarantee those who have to drive a distance an allotted # of bottles before hand, instead of sitting around at 6-7 a.m. getting hammered at a bottle share with a bunch of other awesome BA's. But whatever the JK guys choose I'm sure I will be there if I have enough notice.

 

I like the idea of tickets as well, which can be tied to a list of names like at the Anniversary party. Saves you guys the problem of having to deal with people getting there at 5am to line up, and also guarantees the person with the ticket a bottle/bottles. In the past I think you've handled the Anniversary parties very well, and would love to see a similar system