Brewery Release vs. Distro - The great debate

SammyJaxxxx · Jun 27, 2015

Shaler_Tate said: ↑

Ok guys, I am from Oklahoma where they have been fighting to change laws for some time. We made some headway this year but we are stalled until the next set of hearings in our state legislature. With all of this going on, my beer buddies have been arguing and I am curious what you guys think.

What do you think about breweries that only release their best beers at the brewery and put strict bottle limits on them vs. distributing everything statewide and then potentially on the rest of the distro footprint.

The best example is probably Jester King. They have a lot of great beers, but they are all released only at the brewery and they usually have insane 1 bottle limits despite regular bottle counts north of 5000. Then they get mad when people cheat their system and go through line more than once. I understand their reasoning, but do you think they have gone too far and they are missing the point? All of their beers that hit distro are pretty mediocre, so basically only people who live near Austin are able to enjoy their best offerings. Sure it builds a lot of hype on their beers, but it seems like don't want everyone to be able to taste their best work.

What are your thoughts?
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I completely agree. They should not be sold at the brewery. They should only go through a distributor in Northern New jersey
Now that you mention it, this rule should also apply to Bruery reserve bottles, Russian River, Hill Farmstead, Alchemy. ...

thetimhortonsman · Jun 27, 2015

Just moved to Massachusetts a few weeks ago and finally made it over to Tree House yesterday. In relation to this thread, the way Tree House handles limits is to lower them when supply decreases. For example, on Thursday they canned around 200 cases of Julius and had the limit set at 6 per person (800 people at the max limit). Yesterday, they started with ~100 cases left and set the limit at 4pp (600 people). For today, there's only 20 cases left and so the limit is 2pp (240 people).

dennis3951 · Jun 27, 2015

I suspect that small breweries make a lot of money on brewery only releases. Selling 3,000 bottles at a retail price instead of a wholesale price seems like a no brainer to me.

1ale_man · Jun 27, 2015

JK must be doing ok with their business plan because I live jist 5 hrs. in N.East Texas and we don't have it here. I don't care about their release plan or any other brewery. I just wish they would share more after the release.

BeerSamurai34 · Jun 27, 2015

1ale_man said: ↑

JK must be doing ok with their business plan because I live jist 5 hrs. in N.East Texas and we don't have it here. I don't care about their release plan or any other brewery. I just wish they would share more after the release.
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Totally agree.

Brewery Release vs. Distro - The great debate

SammyJaxxxx Initiate (0) Feb 23, 2012 New Jersey

thetimhortonsman Initiate (0) Jun 6, 2014 Ohio

dennis3951 Initiate (0) Mar 6, 2008 New Jersey

1ale_man Initiate (0) Apr 25, 2015 Texas

BeerSamurai34 Initiate (0) Jan 23, 2015 Texas

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