Kane Morning Bell

I had Malus on tap last weekend and LOVED it. Thought it was pretty damn incredible.

 

I agree, I just personally think that a coffee porter will be wanted by more people than malus. Hence why morning bell went in two weekend and malus was around for awhile

 

Oh I believe it. Coffee beers are incredibly popular right now. And I love them, but they're starting to get towards the "dime a dozen" category in terms of availability. There's still a disparity amongst coffee beers between just good ones and great ones, though.

That said, count me in for loving Malus. I haven't had Morning Bell yet. Sounds like I missed it this time around. Maybe next time. I'm sort of exhausted at the moment with going after limited release/rarities.

 

I picked up 12 bottles with my wife on Friday. 2 were for us, 4 were for my buddy, and the rest were for good friends of mine. Just because someone got 12 bottles doesn't make them a hoarder. Some people got the bottles to trade specifically, that sucks but it happens. You can't really police that stuff. Just because one person does it for the purpose of trading doesn't make it right to use a broad statement for everyone who got a couple full allotments. With that being said, I hate when people buy up beers for the sole purpose of trading them. Holding beers ransom is not what the beer community should be about. This year's morning bell was really good and my wife absolutely loved it. Hope everyone gets a chance to try it.

 

Can this accusation/justification conversation just like not happen ever again?

Buy beer, drink beer, don't complain.

 

At least new money didn't come up

 

People complain about everything these days. I just don't like people that unfairly accuse others without having evidence they are complaining about in the first place. Just had to put my two cents in lol.

 

unfortunately, in the current state of craft beer, it will happen literally every single time there is a limited release that people want, because there will always be people who don't get it (when they think they should get it), or don't get enough of it

go check the Dinner release thread in the New England forum. or every Mexican Cake release thread ever. and so forth.

 

I'm guessing a lot of the issues with Kane, no matter what bottles they have on offer, come from the 2014 ANTEAD release. There's going to be residual distaste from many for how that "event" transpired no matter what level of lunacy we think it is for people to feel hurt by that.

A second aspect of complaint likely comes from why people were buying the 2014 ANTEAD. I talked with roughly 15 people that day in the queue and only two of them had ever had a Kane beer. Any Kane beer. Talking with other regulars in the weeks that followed they relayed a similar ratio of people who had never sipped a Kane beer. Rationally or not, people started to get very defensive about Kane following that day last May and it's no shock to see these feelings bubble up from time to time.

My assumption 11 months ago was in due time people will move on to another fauxrage cause and leave Kane behind but seeing all the angst over the release of a beer that is on draught nearly every month at the brewery makes me think we're in for an all-time epic bitchfest over the next month with the 2015 release of ANTEAD upon us. I'm cool though since I plan on renting an RV and spending that Friday night in Kane's parking lot.

 

My point is that I'd rather not read those types of threads and all of this bs about "hoarding" (whatever that really means) followed up by 20 angels who only bought to share with all of their friends and aren't even keeping their own bottles yada yada.

No one owes anyone anything. Product sold, product bought, move on.

You missed out? Wow it really sucks that those were the last bottles of beer on Earth.

The kvetching in this case is especially bizarre since, as the poster right above me notes, this isn't even a rare beer and the sales lasted for 3 days (a relative eternity). Morning Bell will be on tap at Kane for months and it will see wide distribution. It's already on tap at bars 60 miles away. Why is anyone complaining?

 

From my understanding (and I maybe 100% wrong) but the Hype over ANTEAD 2014 came from Kane taking it some beer festival(s) before the release and it got all hyped up. And should have cause I feel it was the best beer of 2014.

The next issue was they had a turn out they weren't expecting. I know as a business owner, you can't please everyone. You can't expect to have 1000% sales increases. If they lowered the limit to 2 bottles per person, the people the front would be pissed off. If they kept the limit at a case each, everyone after person 50 something would be pissed off. They were ready for what happened, and I hope this year they find a balance, or don't release the limit until opening.

 

I think the best way to handle events like the ANTEAD release is to have a limit of one bottle per person. Of course not everyone who buys six or twelve or whatever is hoarding them, but it seems more fair to me that anyone who was there when the place opened that morning should get what they came for than to allow people to buy a bottle for everyone in their circle of friends. If you want to get some for your friends who couldn't make it, you can always just share your bottle with them. It's not like we are talking about 12oz bottles here, these things are very conducive to sharing.

As for Morning Bell, I would have liked to have gotten a bottle, but as pnutbutr said, it was available for days so I have nobody to blame by myself. I'm sure I'll get it on tap sometime soon anyway so no loss. Anyone who wanted it can still get it pretty easily.

 

Hunaphu 2014 and ANTEAD 2014 happened very close to each other last year. Cigar City fixed Hunaphu day quite well from what I saw, so why can't Kane do the same thing to suit?

For Kane, the scarcity of bottles is a surefire way to sell all the product and get maximum profit.

 

I don't think comparing CC who produced 44k barrels distributed in 7 states to a 5k barrel brewery that bottles a few releases a year by hand is really a good comparison. I think Kane bottles to get their name out there and maybe have some product that moves around in the craft beer community, but its definitely more of a hassle then a profit center for them. And I certainly don't think they would have had any problem running through the extra 10 barrels or so of Morning Bell they bottled at the taproom or to their keg accounts.

As far as "bitching about hoarding," yes the world is not going to end if someone has 12 bottles instead of 6. The brewery sets up a limit so that regulars and locals have time to get some, and also so that visitors have a chance to move some of the beer outside of their normal footprint. And if those bottles are going to friends, family, even getting traded its no big deal or maybe even a positive thing. If you put 18 bottle in your basement, it's also probably not going to cause Armageddon, but it's definitely running counter to the goal of the brewer you are supposedly supporting.

 

You'll never solve the buying for currency or buying for personal use. With "very" limited products, it does suck when people have no intention of drinking it, but buy it for how much heady their haul will equal. At the same time, if I buy 6, drink 2 share 2 with friends and turn 2 extra bottles into a "black tuesday" type of bottle in a trade, was I jerk for buying 6 instead of 4? Now, you get the guy with 3-4 friends just there to mule 3-4 cases, in fairness does that do more damage than everyone else buying 2 extra?

 

1 bottle per person doesn't work either, and I say this as a local (sort of), AND a beer trader. I wouldn't make the 2-hr r/t drive to buy 1 bottle. But making sure I got 2, and my best trade buddies got the other 4? that's absolutely worth my time.

Kane isn't stupid. While yes, NJ locals are very important to them, after all they're the people who pay the bills, but I guarantee they're tapped into the craft beer scene circa 2015. they know full on that there is value in having their beers be sought after and having their name be known (outside of NJ I mean)

 

Does anyone know when the ANTEAD release is this year? I work midnights need to take the night off. I've been to their brewery several times but never to one of their releases. Parking is bad on a regular day. Cant wait to see it on that day

 

No information yet on a release date. Last rumor was someone saying June-ish. I think @markgugs ?

 

when I asked them a couple weeks ago at the brewery they said likely late/end of summer. barrels are dated 6/26 or something along those lines, so figure bare minimum at least a year in the barrels, plus time in the bottles

 

yeah, I think more people are looking for the next barrel aged morning bell (no information on this really either, maybe the Anniversary party?) as well.

Last year people got excited when the rumored release date got spread around and it was the wrong date. I remember because I was one of the suckers out there believing it haha.