O'so 7th Anniversary Party

FWIW- O'so's latest flyer lists "3 rare bottle beers". They mention BBA beers, but no mention on website or facebook confirming the Door Kriek release. I'll keep hunting.

 

While this is awesome- three mid-winter brewery-only releases in North-Central Wisconsin? Are they nuts? I'm one of the more committed beer idiots around and even I am usually willing to make one trip up there in the Winter (usually to CW).

 

Don't get me wrong- I will try to get to one of these releases. But I just can't get to all three. Especially if CW's anniversary is on a different weekend in January. There is something to be said for running a brewery your way. But you have to make your best beers accessible to a reasonable degree (and not just to locals, especially in a market as small as Central Wisconsin). Alpine is very exclusive in their releases, but they're only 20 minutes from San Diego. Even New Glarus R&D releases aren't so bad being 40 minutes from Madison.

Most of this is my own jealousy- I want to try all of these beers. But to ask folks to give up a weekend day every other month this winter (and possibly a Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun to eliminate drinking and driving) is a little frustrating. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, and maybe I am over-reacting. But why not put out a dual-release with Funk Factory's Madison location? Or maybe set up Brown Paper Ticket releases with a pick-up window (ie. I work most every Saturday, so it's a pretty big commitment to take one or even two Saturdays off over the course of the Winter.) I'd happily plan a trip that overlapped two pick-up windows for some of these releases.

Every brewery has a right to release beers how they see fit. But at the same time, beer is business. Asking folks to drive 2-4 hours (3+ round trip for almost all of us) to pick up bottles of beer is risky business, even if gas has dipped below $3 a gallon (for now). It's not necessarily bad business, if the beer is good enough. We'll know soon enough if the promise of Funk Factory bottles makes the long and expensive trip worthwhile.

 

A lot of it has to do with winter, too. I get the 1/23 release, because most likely it will be a day before CW's release. But you'd have to be nuts to make the drive from MKE, Madison, or even Eau Claire two months again in February. Add on 10-15 gallons of gas and we're talking about an expensive and cold trip for 12-ish bottles of beer.

I see it as a bit of poor planning (or more likely, over-excitement to get beer out) but maybe alternating releases with Funk Factory (I have a hard time believing he won't be open by the new year) would make all the beer lovers in the state a bit more satisfied.

This is all just feedback and (hopefully) constructive criticism. Ultimately, they are putting the beer into the trading market even if they're intentions are to keep it local.

 

I'm certainly a chief beer idiot.

 

I grasp the method- plenty of breweries have built a business based on serving locals. It works, but it's frustrating in this situation because O'so has clearly gone out of their way to distribute across the state- so they've built a brand of loyal followers who aren't within a short drive from the brewery. If they weren't in full-on distribution, I'd say this type of release strategy makes a lot more sense, fiscally. But most of their income comes from that state-wide (not sure if they are out of state) distribution. So, most of their customers are not actually locals but in fact are people who live hours from the brewery. And many of those folks won't have a chance to try these beers.

 

Good point. Has O'so ever put a BA beer or an FF-associated beer into distro?

My other question is- how do they know the sours will be ready? From what I've experienced, it's a touch-and-go operation and they aren't ready til they're ready (same with BA stouts and such, but to a lesser degree).

I look forward to more info from O'so.