BA Mexican Cake Release

They did share some Cognac. The owners were kind enough to share some at the local beer bar, so people could try some before any release.

Communication for a beer that thousands of people would love to line up for just isn't happening. As for honesty and consistency, you can pretty much rule out any info coming from sources outside the two owners or official release postings on Facebook. In the case of silent releases, you just have to be lucky enough to visit the day it goes out. Calling the brewery is pointless for BAMC. Many of us have repeatedly said this. Why would they tell some random guy over the phone when the release will be, if they didn't want everyone to know?
As others have mentioned in this thread, this year is not a good year for a big release. The warehouse construction is taking up a lot of parking space. Add that to the fact that they are working on it 5-6 days a week makes the whole area a bit busy.

 

So what he tells the employees to lie? I guess obeying the ninth commandment isn't a big deal for Ed in the holy city

 

Lol i love how CCB released zhukov yesterday. Posted it the night before that the release would be at 9am. They had a huge line, but everything went smoothly and they constantly stocked their beer coolers all day with it afterwards......take note westbrook. CCB>WB

 

Raver james.....so why note communicate that the ongoing construction this year will change how we release our limited beers - seems like an easy thing to do and one that is totally understandable. Think that would have halted most of the unease the silent release created and folks would have ultimately understood.

Exactly what I mean about honesty and communication! SMH

 

I don't think WB is doing a good job with how they're handling the MC releases this year, but in their defense, CCB probably has close to 100x more parking available to them than WB does. And CCB has had plenty of issues themselves with releases in the past. It takes a lot of planning, by people who aren't necessarily experienced at doing it, to make a release go smoothly. I wish WB would just come out and explain what they're doing and why they're doing it, but I'm sure they have a reason for doing it they way they are, and that they're doing what they think is best, whether it is or not.

 

I get the sense that some of the posters on this thread (weirdly enough my fellow NC'ers, it seems) assume it's their right to know any and all details about these releases, which seems a little far fetched.

Just because a brewery is releasing a special beer you want doesn't mean you deserve to know all the details. If the brewery wants to do a silent release for locals, to avoid craziness, or really for whatever reason they choose, shouldn't it be their right to do so? And maybe they're a bit too busy making awesome beer to explain all of this... if you don't like how they handle it, don't buy their beer?

 

CCB has a rather small parking lot (thanks to their own construction/expansion that took away some parking) but they do have an overflow lot about half a block down across the street.

 

How have they not done a good job? All the beer has sold out in prompt time (but not instantly, leaving tons of people in line disappointed) while they have avoided turning their tasting room into a complete overwhelmed shit show.

 

All of these opinions...

It's Westbrook's beer to do with as they please. Simple as that, right?

 

#parkinglotanalytics

 

Lets not forget this is the South Atlantic region of BeerAdvocate, guys, this is like the first-watch for bottle releases and a lot of us are veterans, that's the point of this area, we are all pretty familiar with each other's posts. We aren't bully in the Zhukov threads or 110k releases, if we do anything with CCB when they announce something is get there early. If any of us are against anyone getting the beer, it shouldn't be between us on here, the locals are going to get theirs just like we do. If Westbrook announces a release, I will be there, if they don't, I imagine between the guys on here that did, we should all be able to hook it up between Florida and South Carolina, as usual.

 

No. It's my beer. My own... my... Preciousssss

 

It's El Guapo's beer. And he wants more than a sweater for his birthday this time.

 

Just to clarify, I like the silent release, I think it's a great way to handle the situation they're in right now, and I agree that the MC release went very smoothly. I'm not sure, given the state of beer culture right now, that "all the beer has sold out in a prompt time," is the only way to judge a beer release, but whatever. My only issue is if WB has instructed employees to lie to customers about the release, like some BAs have alleged--I think that's inappropriate and unnecessary. All they have to do is release a statement on their website or FB or whatever, or if they don't want to cater to out of towners, print it out and post it on their front door, saying something to the effect of:

"We know you're excited about this beer, so are we, and we can't wait to share it with as many of you as possible. Unfortunately, because we have like 5 parking spaces and the area around us is under construction, we can't have a big release date party, so we're going to release it silently, and a little bit at a time. Please don't waste your or our employees time asking us to tell you when it is going to be because we are not able to tell you."

Then, if customers do call about it, or ask about it in the taproom, have a line ready about how they aren't providing information to anybody about the release. That way they don't have to lie to people who are trying to give them money. But maybe that hasn't really happened, I guess I don't know personally, I'm just trusting accounts I've read on here, so who knows, and if that's the case, then a thousand apologies to all you butthurt WB apologists.

 

I'm not a WB apologist at all, and some of their staff sucks, but for the most part everyone there is great even if the service is awful at times. That being said, if you honestly think that the staff has been instructed to lie, then you have lost your mind.

 

Look, again, I don't know if employees have lied or not, but I've read a bunch of posts on BA where people think employees lied to them... Maybe those BAs made it up, I honestly don't know. And even if staff hasn't been specifically instructed to lie about the release information, if they haven't been given any advice about how to handle all the inquiries, that's just as bad.

WB should have anticipated all the excitement surrounding these beers and had a plan for how to handle it. That's all I'm saying. And I'm not anti-WB. At all. I like their taproom, I like their beer, all of the staff I've ever interacted with has been awesome, I got my 6 bottles of MC this year with zero issues and it was very good.

I don't know how I got painted into the corner of being anti-WB... My initial post was 90% defending them against somebody saying that because CCB's Zhukov release went smoothly that WB should do the same thing with BAMC, but Boilerfan got mad at the one line of my post where I said I didn't like how they had handled the MC release so far, and here we are. They could have very easily explained what they're doing and why, but again, it's their beer, it's their brewery, of course they're entitled to handle it in any way they want, and of course it's all going to sell out in a very short period of time, so I guess their attitude is who cares, we don't need to clarify anything to anybody?

 

People complaining about being "lied to on the phone" should perhaps take a moment to read the FAQ on the website:


WHEN IS MEXICAN CAKE AVAILABLE?
Mexican Cake is released once each year in early May. Barrel-aged Mexican Cake is usually released in August or September. We may or may not announce the date of the Barrel-aged Mexican Cake release beforehand. Please do not call/email and ask about the release date - if we haven't announced anything it means we haven't set a date yet or we are doing a silent release.

 

That's your idea of "getting mad"? You stated an opinion and I asked you why you felt that way (given the completely different experience I had) in a completely benign manner.

They do explain some aspects of this in the FAQ section of their website, and it's not hard to ask in person. What are you proposing they need to clarify, and where? Saying too much starts to defeat the purpose of a silent release.

 

man, threads like this make me swear that if I ever own a brewery/bottleshop the telephone# will NOT be made public!

 

Seriously.

I can't imagine how inconvenient it must be for a business when people are always calling or emailing to find out about one of their products. I mean, don't they know to read up on the FAQ section of the website first?