New Growler Limit at HF - 3

The only place to find HF without dealing with a crowd is on tap locally. The brewery is always slammed and has been for ~9 months...I've filled growlers once in 9 months out of 7-8 visits due to lines.

 

So for nine months it has been like this? I understand expansion takes time but just how much? And this isn't about making more beer, it is about getting it to the customers faster.

 

Shaun said this past weekend that breaking ground on the building expansion may be as early as this week.

 

They don't have time to get back in line, they need to get back to the Chesapeake region before the beer turns.

 

Well, read up on Act 250 in VT and you'll understand the timelines for major construction. Perhaps this little thing called funding also played into things...

 

They can enforce the limit still. If the limit is three and some idiot fills his slip out for 10 then they only get 3 still; it's a pretty basic concept. I do agree that it doesn't alleviate the wait time but doing whatever you for 2 hours beats standing in line for 2 hours.

 

Maybe they can use the money from the Collected Works club.

 

Trying to remember when we must have made a sacrifice to the beer gods, we have only done store visits twice, once on a tuesday in July and we were first in line and back on the road AFTER a leisurely tasting by about 12:30. (sorry to anyone behind us as we filled 8 750s).The second time on the 27th of July where we were about 10th in line and buying mostly bottles (yeah phenomonology and Geneology) with only one growlerfill and we were back on the road by 12:30 again. Shaun is a frickin obsessive compulsive about filling those growlers properly but still it went smoothly. We didnt encounter the 2-3 hour waits people are talking about. Talking to the guys at the brewery they say about 3pm is generally a lull when it gets quiet. just check in with the lab who knows better than anyone else when busy times are and comes over for attention :-) .

 

It makes sense to me that you'd get lots of non-beer geek tourists visiting, say, Harpoon, but it surprises me that you'd get any at all at such a remote place as HF. I was just up in VT this past week but couldn't convince my sweetheart that driving up to HF (i.e., an extra four or five hours driving) was a good idea.

Alas, all I could do was cry into my Double Sunshine and Heady Topper...

As to a ticket system, a problem might be that it would actually add time to the wait, so as to allow for people responding to their number being called and moving their order out of the way.

 

Thank you very much for bringing a reasonable perspective into this discussion. I've been accused of being a HFB "homer" for, apparently, choosing to see that the crew there tries to do the right thing. There seems to be some latent belief in some quarters that they make decisions to screw customers, that they enjoy customers waiting, etc. Saying it out loud, I hope, makes it apparent how ridiculous this sounds. I believe their expansion plans are all about trying to find a delicate balance among competing interests--serving customers, maintaining/improving quality, providing jobs, remaining true to the farmstead, etc., etc. No doubt there will be customers who won't be happy with the outcome. If this unhappiness is because they only presume the worst intentions and are only thinking about themselves selfishly, I say screw 'em.... they can get their beer somewhere else.

 

Progress takes time. People need to chill.

 

Any sagely advice for people who work regular office hours during the week? Many locals can't just take off from work for a couple of hours because it's a less busy day.


HF has grown at a rate I think few could have foreseen. It was only a year ago I could go up there on a Friday and grab unlimited shelf bottles and fill 10-12 growlers with only a few other people in line. Now, we're at (anticipated) multiple hour waits for 3. I don't understand how anyone could expect them to magically introduce more lines, bigger facilities, hire a bunch more workers, and brew additional beer (more beer/shorter lines means people are more likely to come, requiring additional product...) overnight. Oh... and not disrupt the land and neighbors, the part of the HF ethos so often overlooked in calls for immediate expansion.

 

Explanation is: there are a ton of second-home/camp owners on Lake Caspian and around Craftsbury/Greensboro, mostly of retirement age. Many of them are aware of the brewery, and enjoy their beers, but have no interest in beer-geekery. When their guests from out-of-town come up and want to see the brewery, Jasper Hill, and all the other foodie-magazine places that get a lot of non-local media attention, they naturally want to try the goods - just not with the same ferocity as the geeks.

 

I love (and by that I mean hate) how "beer geeks" forget that normal people like to drink beer, too. Which is something I encourage!

 

Exactly. On my trip to HF a few weeks ago, it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I did the tasting first, then waited to get my growlers filled for maybe 45 min - between my brother and I we were only able to afford 5 2L due to our ignorance of the cash only policy. I was joined in line by my friend's dad who has a lake house nearby and came with 3 houseguests to get one 2L fill of Edward. He loves the beers, stops in for refills when the spirit moves him, but thought it was pretty crazy that my brother and I had made the trip up from Boston just to sample a few drops from their little brewery up the hill.

 

I don't understand why you need to troll every thread about "insert VT brewery" instituting limits in the NE regional forum. How does this affect you? I'm sorry, I don't usually make posts calling people out like this but every post I see from you in the New England subforum seems like its to stir up shit.

Anyways I think its a good rule, increases the trade value for HF growlers (lol). I have also seen a lot of these older non beer geek people there, good for them. We all have just as much right to drink HF as anyone from anywhere of any age (over 21), ethnicity, gender body type, etc does (even though I do want it all for myself sometimes).

 

Have some semi-retired local friends who used to go to the brewery regularly in the early days to buy beer to take back to their lake camp. They've given up and just drink homebrew at camp now because they can't take the in-line hassles anymore. Having to plan your day around what's the "best" time to go get a growler for dinner is not how they'd like to spend their spare time, but as locals they wish the brewery well just the same.

 

I'm a customer of HF and The Alchemist so I comment on threads involving them...as if it is any of your business why or where I post on a public forum.

 

Well, posting on a public forum in and of itself makes your contributions everyone's business, sooooooo...