Pizza Boy sours currently unavailable

Not that simple, really. Russian River and Toronado both publicized their policy - they weren't advertising something as available when it actually wasn't. Also, the problem @ Russian River was a lot of people were turning around and selling growlers on eBay for profit. It was a widespread problem that prevented locals from getting access to the beer because people bought up a bunch of growlers and sold them. That's not even mentioning that the brewers hated lots of people making more money on their product than they did. You could still show up to Russian River and drink PtY, or show up to Toronado and get Cable Car (periodically) for on-site consumption.

This is the exact opposite of that situation - the locals are being denied access to beer because one person tried to take something out that wasn't available for take-out. One person. With an amateur understanding of the legal process around label approval and take out beer, the chance of Al losing his license for someone re-bottling beer and taking it out is effectively zero. Pizza Boy's policy is in-house only, and every time prior to Friday that I've ordered a sour there, they would always pop the bottle and throw out the cap and pour the first glass for me. If someone takes their glass into the bathroom, re=pours it back into the bottle, busts out a homebrew style bottle capper, and sneaks it out, that's not on Al. If Pizza Boy sold the bottles without un-capping them for people and turned a blind eye if they happened to walk out with them, that would be legally different, but that's just simply not what was going on.

If someone at Tired Hands got 2 16 oz pours of something and poured them into a bottle and capped them, would Jean risk losing his license if that "bottle" found its way to the internet? I can't believe the answer is yes given that it wasn't the business doing something illegal, but an individual doing something against policy. It's also no less illegal that someone at Pizza Boy shipping out the bottles in a trade...which has happened (I only know because I know who was on the receiving end, and they got it direct from someone at the brewery, although I don't know exactly who sent them).

Also, I wasn't going to say it but now that someone else did, the bottles are going to be sold for take-out in the near future, according to a few people I talked to that have some knowledge of the situation. They're going through the process of label approval, and from what I've heard, the idea is that all sour releases will be on-site only for "a little while" and then when a sufficient amount of time has passed that locals can get them without a shit show release day, they'll be available to-go, most likely at a 1 bottle per beer per person type release. I don't know if those to-go releases will be silent or scheduled, but I'd bet on the former because I get the impression Al cares about maintaining a family-friendly atmosphere and doesn't want 300 people lined up outside the place before they open. That's not from Al's mouth to my ears (I don't know him personally outside of a passing hello), but I've heard it from more than one person who does know him fairly well. Of course, subject to change, as we've already seen with the in-house rules.

Long post, but simple premise: Just disclose your policy instead of falsely advertising something as available and then pulling a bait-and-switch and being rude about it to your customers.

P.S. There are some really cool things in barrels right now. Things you'd have to trade a boatload for if you wanted the "original" bottling of from somewhere else.

 

I take unlabeled growlers to breweries all the time to get filled. No alcohol warning, no branding. Completely legal. This is not different. From your earlier posts I can see you have a very close affiliation with the brewery, but it's a bit unreasonable to defend the policy if (unlabeled) bottles actually have left the brewery on purpose, don't you think?