Fonta Flora Tap List / Bottles

Any clue if there are still bottles left today?

 

There may be some Sun Gold and Land Trust. Probably at least still on tap

 

All of the bottles are sold out. Land Trust and Sun Gold are still available on draught. Sal is not.

Thanks to everyone who came out yesterday. The weather was perfect and we felt the release went really smoothly. You folks who support us and wait in line to buy bottles continue to humble us. Thank you. Big things coming in 2016.

 

I lied. Still about 4 cases of Land Trust remaining. Will probably be gone today.

 

So good to hear!!! A beer release goes smooth as silk and the panthers pull it out. Its a good time TO live on good ol NC!!!

 

Got a few bottles of Land Trust at about 3 today along with a pour of Land Trust and Sun Gold.

 

Such a great time. For the amount of people there and the size of the brewery, You guys know how to run a smooth release.
Thank you.

For the early morning funk and monk line goers. If anyone is interested in playing some board games let me know! We brought uno this time but we're thinking about other possibilities and getting more people involved. (trivial pirsuit, risk etc..)

 

@HopBeard I was at the release and it was a great time. First time coming to your place. Just moved to Hickory last week. Anyway I agree with the presale but with crashing sites and people getting shut out and getting mad it tends to not always be smooth. One thing you could try is having a bottle count and say at 10am allowing people to get a wrist band and being able to leave to go out and do things and then come back later in the day. Giving them to closing to pick up bottles, that way it won't be a rush all at once. You could also set up a membership like many other breweries do. Sell a certain amount of memberships and one of the perks could be you could preorder your allotment but not have to pick them up on release day thus cutting down on traffic.

 

I like the way side project does it. They have x amount of bottles and adjust allotment day of to insure as many people as possible get at least one.

 

Welcome to Hickory! Make sure to stop by Hops & Grapes, especially on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights as there's a decent crowd. Okay, selfishly I'll say Friday since that's when I'm normally there

I wasn't at the release unfortunately (had tickets to see Syracuse demolish Wake well before the release was ever announced), but have talked to a number of people that work and the wristband thing is something that I've heard a number of times. I think people felt a little frustrated at not knowing whether they were likely to get Sal de Gusano or not, and even the Sun Gold as well (I know Land Trust lasted until the next day). Granted if FF goes to a presale then it doesn't matter, but the wristbands would cut way down on the tension in line (will I get bottles? won't I get bottles?)

 

Can you bring "outside bottles"?

 

I was working Westbrook for the first BA Cake release. There were 200 some odd full allotments. Around 10am We checked IDs and handed out wristbands and people were free to go (release was at 3). There were extras of some bottles so people after the limit were told they would get something but not full allotments. The only thing we did that probably wasn't smart was at the set time we went down the list and called names. Checked IDs again and you could get your allotment. That took forever. If you were in the 100s you had to sit and wait til it got to you. However you could hang in the tasting room and have some beers while you waited. I think that was silly. Check IDs, get wrist band and come back, no need to call names.

Then you have to decide on proxy. I'm a fan and I'm not. You can't make it, but having a friend pick it up for you is cool. However on the other hand you would have people preorder with as many friends as possible and then you have a big muling situation of people who don't live in the area. I know if can be done but I'm not computer savvy enough. Some how make it so a proxy can pick up theirs and one other. If someone walks in and picks up for like 10 people that isn't really fair (life isn't fair though). How do you know it's not all for him to trade or sell away. Make it so your name can only be associated once on the list. If you have more than one proxy associated with your name it will be deleted.

 

What you described below is how Alesmith did the recent Hawaiian and BA Speedway presale. I'm sure they've done it before and others have done it as well, but that's the most recent one that I've seen. You could have one other name on the list than your own that you could proxy for. If anyone's name was on the list more than once then I think all the orders (or maybe just one) were cancelled.

 

If it ain't broke...

 

This release was at the edge of being broke though... It seems each release is getting closer and closer to getting broke as more and more people hear about the awesomeness that is FF. What you don't want to do is waiting until its broke to try anything.

 

Fair enough. I don't know anyone who went, but all reports in this thread so far had seemed to indicate smoothness.

 

Day of/silent announcement is the way to go. That caters to locals getting the beer, which is ultimately your best customers. No lines, No wristbands, no 8 page threads of people whining because they traveled x number of hours to buy 1 single beer that they felt entitled to own/trade.

 

While I am pretty much always in favor of unannounced releases in general, I'm not sure this model would be beneficial to the brewery. They want people buying lots of drafts and making a day of it. Not a small group of people coming in 3 days in a row just to grab all the bottles and roll out.

I could be wrong, but I just don't see how that's in the brewery's best interests in this case. This is not Westbrook that's sitting right beside Charleston, we're talking Morganton, NC.

 

I think there's been a small amount of grumbling in the thread, though I'll agree overall it still seemed pretty smooth. I know some of my local friends grumbled a decent amount because they waited in line and then didn't end up with bottles of anything since they weren't huge fans of Land Trust and that was all that was left by the time they got to the front. They were fairly certain they weren't going to get Sal, but the other one they liked but ended up getting shut out on. Sounded like you needed to get to FF by 1:30 or so to get bottles of Sal, which I agree is pretty decent. But if it gets where you have to be there at noon or earlier for some of the 3pm FF releases, its going to put a serious crimp in me going. And this was with Sal only being announced a couple days before the release (though I think most people knew that the 'mystery third beer' they were releasing was going to be either Sal or BR&L).

Anyway, enough rambling from me. Point is, I'm local enough (just two towns or so over) that I really would like to attend most of FFs releases and I'd like to find a way that it isn't painful as all hell to do so I'll certainly respect whatever FF decides though, its their decision.