Alpine Updates

Alpine actually started out contact brewing at AleSmith.

 

Even further proof that there's nothing wrong with contract brewing as a way to raise funds.

 

Pro tip X2 - Don't forget to bring your investment counselor to the brewery in case you want to invest heavily in Societe futures (i.e. buy a growlers of Butcher AND Apprentice).

 

Frosh IPAs that you can taste before buying trump questionable bottles every time. So the more you spend at Societe, the more you save!

 

More like, the more I spend at Alpine and Societe, the more my gut grows.

 

I don't figure how its a great idea to only make it highly inconvenient to buy their most popular product.

Yeah, except 99% of the time I'm not looking to a) drive all the way over to Societe or b) drink 4 pints of beer at once or alternatively, 2 pints of beer today and 2 pints of flat/oxidized beer a couple of days after that.

Actually, the pioneer of contract brewing is you know, pretty much all of the macrobreweries dating back to the 19th century since contract brewing isn't a thing craft brewers invented. Alpine is nothing like Sam Adams, doesn't sell similar beer or to a similar demographic and has stated different goals.

I'm not saying there's an inherent problem with contract brewing, I just think its an odd situation.

 

^— Normally I’d agree with you about their growler policy, but I’ve filled up a growler there many times, drank half of it, capped it off, then drank the other half a few days later, and when I opened it the second time the cap blew off just as fiercely as when I first opened it. I hate drinking flat growlers, but I’ve never had that problem with a previously-opened Societe growler.

 

Magic Societe Growlers aside, I still think its strangely inconvenient to the customer to sell your most popular product in that manner. This is a pretty big derail in an Alpine topic, so let's just drop it, though.

 

Does Societe offer a one liter growler?

 

How many local top tier IPAs are bottled and are consistently awesome? None that I can think of, especially Alpine. Stone may be the only one with the Enjoy Bys. Port, ballast Point, Alesmith, and Alpine all have major consistency issues with their bottled IPAs (likely not just the bottling process). Hell Pliny bottles aren't even consistent!

Societe has pretty good evidence against bottling their stuff.
Maybe Green Flash can help Alpine learn some QC as they grow.

 

No

 

I’m afraid of them eventually doing that – I’m going to go broke.

 

Why? Alpine wants to make more beer but is at capacity and doesn't have the funds to expand. Brewing more beer elsewhere seems like the most obvious possible route to growth.

 

I really like the option to buy this quantity in a growler. (And they travel well in a standard wine shipper.) I think you'd actually buy less beer that way (instead of enjoying the remaining 32 ozs two days later from the magic growler!)

 

I suspect Sage avoids getting full sized growlers because he is worried that the beer will become less than ideal, and/or he'll get tired of it. The grumblers pretty much get you in bomber territory, which changes the ball game.

 

I'm loving the exploration and sports metaphors. I'm catching the pop fly you're hitting toward my frontier.

 

You're still talking about beer, right?

 

The reason its an odd situation is that its baffling how Alpine isn't making enough money to expand in the same manner most other breweries do (which is just renting out a bigger facility and brewing more beer on site). I mean, we're talking about a brewery that limits the amount of year-round beer they sell to their customers to three bottles a day.

 

They don't charge enough money for their beer to do that. I think that fueling expansion on only profits is very hard. Pat probably doesn't want any (more?) debt.

 

For one, I think that first statement is speculation, and the second argument doesn't even make sense. That's how capitalism works; people don't just give you capital debt-free. Something's gotta give if you want to grow bigger and make bigger profits. I simply think if this was a logical, straightforward solution, you would see it occurring more often with micro-regional breweries like Alpine.