Firestone Walker Barrelworks 2016 Liberations

So they are using us to bring down their distribution costs... Brilliant!

 

I mean why not though? Not sure the owners can say it but they love when their beer gets further than their reach without them having to do anything. When some guy out in the Netherlands posts a very positive review of some ba speedway variant you can see the eyes of the owners get wider and full of excitement.

 

There obviously isn't enough of this beer to make National or even regional distro worth it for FW, but by allowing proxies, the beer will ineveitibly have a national, and maybe even a global reach, all of this powered by trading/proxy.

I have a larger theory about what FW is doing here with the Barrelworks brand. Just take their already succesful blueprint of their Proprietors Reserve line - in which they produce high quality, barrel-aged beer, available to the masses in annual-seasonal releases (Parabola, Sucaba, etc). Take this same formula, plug in Barrelworks sours, and walla! High quality American sours available to the masses! This may be 2-3 years down the line, but I think it's inevitable. For now, with a beer that has a total production of only 300 cases, proxy will suffice to marginally acheive a wider distro footprint without any real effort by FW.

 

Given how opposed they were of stores reselling previous liberation bottles, it's amazing that they would trust anyone other than themselves with how a beer is transported, sold, traded, etc. from one person to the next. I can totally see a lot of these just hitting the shelves of those usual suspects of stores.

And ultimately this just seems like they're trying to make the best out of a situation where it seems that their liberation model is costing too much out of the bottom line of the company budget and it's time to either increase the amount of footprint those sort of events touched, or just scale it back to the point that it's fiscally responsible.

Because I doubt Jeffers and Jim are all that geared up to potentially sacrifice quality over quantity in terms of getting these sour beers out to the widest reach they can. It just seems like they've been doing it their way for so long, that this first one they try to please as many people as they can just comes off as it potentially being the worst of all worlds.

 

One word. Duvel. A "partnership" like this could change the way FW does a lot of things from the way they used to. All theory, but ultimately I think Barrelworks needs to be profitable to exist...not just a fun hobby expiriment thing which was the message/mission that was largely conveyed 3 years ago.

 

My only qualm with this statement is that despite knowing that David Walker likes Union Jack about a month to six weeks after bottling, their distribution to local accounts around Southern California is still terrible. Most things end up on the shelf 6 weeks to two months after bottling.

 

Gosh I hope not to either. This will be a good experiment for sure.

 

well, that was easy.

 

Easy peasy. Really looking forward to these bottles.

 

easy for me as well

 

peachy bones is already gone

 

maxed. see you playas at the bottle share, playas

 

annnd sold out.

 

Well that pleased me. First shot, full pull, done. Website didn't hiccup or falter.

Can we all rejoice?

Nah, probably not. Let the butthurt flow.

 

meh... HPB sold out faster recently...

 

Got my 4. Guess I was wrong in how fast it would go or how bad it would be. Just that change, man. it's scary.

Looks like both are going through the dropped baskets game right now.

 

2 of each for me, no complaints!

Bottle Logic: take note

 

got mine, that was easy

 

4 and 4, easy.

 

All that hand-wringing...