Other Half Brewery Thread (November 2015)

Looks like next Thursday we can try the OH/Garage collab (I don't think this was ever in the tap room) with a few other Garage beers on tap as well at St Gambrinus:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1478235442507264/

 

I don't get the craze over cans of IPA and DIPA. I've gone to two releases and I like the beer (really like AGE) but it's still just hoppy beer. BFD. I could understand BA stouts, sours, what have you, but this is a little extreme to me.

On the other hand for those saying who needs a case of IPA or whatever, get better at drinking already. And share it. I rarely have had trouble disposing of beer when push came to shove.

Finally what about completely silent releases? You show up and they have beer to go for sale or they don't. If you made a long trip and they don't have it just get some growlers, all good.

My attitude and the slapdash nature of my thoughts here may be attributed to my burgeoning love of good whiskey and the amount I've imbibed this evening in lieu of beer. As you were.

 

I think a lot of people are missing a simple, fundamental principle of business.

Other half is producing a product that benefits them to sell as quickly as possible.

They're gonna move through thousands of cans of beer, and tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of hours Saturday.

Silent releases and short notices are counter productive to that.

 

Good point. I think others are suggesting that they wouldn't need to give a 2 week notice to achieve that goal. If they announced at 9 AM this Saturday that they were releasing cans at 10 AM they would still sell out on Saturday.

 

I think they did it this way because this is how they always do their can releases. Announce on social media what cans are for sale, limits and prices the week of the release. To change that for what will surely be a highly sought after release would alienate some of the "regulars." Look at the Sunday brunch release and all the backlash from that "silent" release.

They still may sell out, but as previously mentioned by @Emmige1 their goal is to sell all the beer they canned that day. with 1 four pack limit, they may not sell out day of, and they need to have employees working the can line all day, tying up an IPAD all day etc. Not great for running a business.

As for task rabbits, if you are willing to spend an extra $50 to $75 for someone to buy you $128 of beer that gets released every 2 weeks (minus street green obviously) I have no problem with that, it's supply and demand, but I personally enjoy the experience of going to the city, talking with other beer enthusiasts, and getting the beer right from the source myself.

 

- because it makes the beer sell out faster than it would otherwise? I don't want to wait in line either, and am gonna miss out this weekend because I couldn't get there before noon. If the line weren't full of mules and taskrabbits, then I could conceivably show up at noon like I do for most of their other releases, not have to wait in line and walk right in and buy my beer and leave

- because it points out to Other Half that they are under-pricing their beer, at least for some people. I happen to think that $16 for a 4 pack is damn expensive already, but OH is clearly seeing that multiple people (enough to make it the 5th most popular use of Taskrabbit) are willing to pay at least $20/hour for what, 1-2 hours additional to their retail cost. If you were OH would you consider raising your prices?

- it's not clear to me whether the people have their Taskrabbit simply wait in line for them, and then they go switch at like 9:55, or if they have them purchase the beer and deliver it to them, but either way it sucks. The former is more like skipping the line, and I would guess that if they did that they'd tell their taskrabbit to stay there and buy them another allotment. If it's the latter, it's a resale and people on here lost their shit about Bushwich Fine Fare reselling it but don't seem to make the same connection to this.

- finally, the fact that craft beer is turning into a luxury market kinda sucks to me. I don't want some hedge fund bro buying up all the good beer because they've read that craft beer/Other Half is the hot new thing and just another trophy to them.

 

@GreaserGreg so eloquently stated why OH needs to sell all of that beer so quickly. They simply do not have the space to maintain stocks of cans and run their business efficiently at same time.

 

Having a higher limit encourages people to buy up to the limit. I typically buy just 2 four packs of whatever cans OH has. When you *need* to wait in line to purchase the beer, then it's only going to be worth your time if you buy the full allotment. If I were able to wait in line for it this weekend, I'd would damn sure buy 4 four packs of Street Green and hook up some buds, and maybe trade a four pack or throw in a can of it as an extra on trade for something else.

 

I mean obviously it stinks for you that you won't get any, and someone else who is willing to commit more to getting some will get it instead. But that doesn't seem particularly unreasonable to me.

It's fine to be against it for these reasons and I sympathize, but then as far as I can tell you have to be against anyone trading away the beer as well. Paying for someone to deliver you the beer in exchange for beer and a shipping label is not substantively different than paying for someone to deliver you the beer in exchange for cash.

I don't see any reason to assume that the person who's getting the beer will enjoy it any less than you would. "Hedge fund bros" can also like beer. They might even like it in exactly the same way you like it, not just because they heard it's the new thing!

 

I can see both sides... Some people have money, some people have time. I'm guessing that it's not just "hedge fund bros" who are sending taskrabbits, but also people with kids you can't spare 2 hours on a Saturday morning to wait for beer, or people with busy schedules, etc. People who send mules/taskrabbits for the sole purpose of buying more than their allotment and reselling suck though.

 

It's really not a resale though. There is a clear distinction between using a taskrabbit to buy beer, at retail price, and a store buying a beer that is not intended for resale, marking it up, and selling it to customers without authorization. Nothing the taskrabbit is doing is wrong, whereas a store reselling is it explicitly violating OH's wishes, and the law.

 

If people are hiring multiple taskrabbits to circumvent the limit, that is not cool.

 

Yeah I guess its just because this is such a different/special situation it may have considered a different approach. But you're correct you just cant win when it comes to releases. I do know that they WILL sell out of cans, there WILL be a shitshow because of the fact its such a special beer/collab (even if it was a silent/last minute notice type of release.)
Add to this the fact that people have had two weeks to prepare/hire mules/task rabbit/hire bums/whatever the fuck else...get your popcorn ready: this thread will be fun to read this weekend.

 

I really hope these cask rabbits are required to wear fuzzy ears. I will be on the look out.

 

Oh agreed. But if you're just hiring a taskrabbit to go buy beer for you because you can't or you're too lazy, it's basically acting as a proxy. The portion of the comment I was addressing was for using a taskrabbit as a proxy, which said nothing about circumventing the limit.

Taskrabbit to act as a proxy for yourself = cool with me, if that's how you want to spend your money. Taskrabbit to mule/circumvent the limit = not cool, ever.

 

I think this is true. There have been times where I had to be in the office on Saturday morning, and considered trying to arrange something like this. But...even though I don't think it's wrong to send one person to purchase the one allotment that you would buy otherwise, it still felt like a violation of The Code to me. I don't fault someone for reaching a different conclusion though.

Obviously using them as mules sucks, but we already knew that mules suck.

 

This conversation led me to Google for images of rabbits riding mules. Apologies if I'm having too much fun. Here's what I found:

 

Kind of like how Lyft drivers had a pink moustache on the front of their cars

 

Are there any shops nearby that I could grab some Singlecut and/or Grimm after?

 

Grimm hasn't released anything in a while so I doubt you'll have much luck finding anything. Whole Foods might have some Singlecut though.