J Wakefield Releases

4:45 !?

 

How was Han Shot First, was the only one of the four I was interested in. So what time did people start showing up who weren't part of the bottle share?

 

Han Shot First was my favorite of the bunch.

 

1st 5 people were lined up before 5 and there were maybe 20-30 by 7. After that, I'm not sure (too many bottles being opened at that point). But it seems like there were well over 100 people by 9.

HSF was pretty good, nicely balanced from what I can remember...the problem is that I was starting to get stout fatigue by the time that bottle was opened.

 

Han Shot First was a favorite for sure, the ghost peppers taking a back seat to the vanilla and chocolate as it warmed. Desperado doing great work again, and in second place for me. Moral Imperative was a close third, the coffee did well, but the other two slightly outshone it.

Those that got shut out were given the opportunity to buy Miami Madness, which was nice. A few line cutters aside, overall the release process was smooth!

 

Arrived 8:45 and got shut out for stouts, was about number 140 in line. Standing in line was a good time, meet some cool people and had some great beer. It was nice that they brought more stuff to sell to us who missed the stouts, Miami Madness ran out quick, but I was able to buy a few bottles of Ronan the Strawbarian along with my Street Fruit.

Most of the line cutting I saw was up at the front and it was people who got stouts trying to jump back in line to buy the Berliners they were offering as a consolation to us that got shut out. Bottles sales were extremely slow, didn't actually make it to the sales table until 1:45, should have gone much quicker with cash sales. Another thing they should have done different is smaller pours on the stouts, 12oz pours was just unnecessary. I probably won't return to JWB for a release, with people showing up at 4:45am its just not a game I want to play anymore.

 

Arrived at 6:45 and was 22nd in line. All three beers were great. People in line were great. Bottle shares were great.

Not sure how they ran out of stouts... 120 bottles is an even ten cases... Not exactly hard to count that.

Line moved extremely slow. They could take some pointers from Cycle on that point.

 

For all the bad mouthing you do to this brewery, you sure looked happy to be there yesterday. Smiles form ear to ear and not a single hesitation in dropping cash to support the brewery.

 

Got the full allotment but at least 50 people got shut out on the stouts. I'm glad I got what I did but it would've been more unique to allow each person one or two of the three stouts available, so it broke up who all got beers but then again, it was 1pp and thats pretty clean-cut in that aspect.

He's just telling it how it was. Blum is a connoisseur of beer, he, like a lot of us, can look past the egotistical actions of the owner to still enjoy the beer and hang out with his friends that are also going to the release, despite past actions. It's Miami.

 

I could've been in Syria yesterday surrounded by the same people I was with and still would've been smiling from ear to ear... That's what people tend to forget... It's not where you are, it's who you're with...
And I had to spend cash b/c I couldn't put anything on my sky miles card....

 

glad most people had fun at the event.. I had a blast hanging out with everyone at the front of the line.. was nice and toasty by the time the sales started

 

That front of the line bottle share was in-fucking-credible. I got to try a LOT of wish list brews. Although, it's gonna be a while before I have another barrel aged stout. Shout out to everyone who brought bottles.

 

I thought it was somewhat humorous that the further down the line you got, the less "whaley" the bottles popped.

That said, I was about 40th in line, had a pretty great share with the adjacent groups.

 

I had a great time in line with a few buddies, props to the guys that shared the doughnuts.

I swear there were two of the guy in the Miami shirt..

 

Well, looks like the next release is the week of May 14th. Haboob Hits Miami, Every Gose Has Its Thorn, and Wasting Away.

After reading the descriptions, and with the memory of their last release still fresh on my memory, I think I might pass on these bottles

 

Link?

 

I'm starting to see a pattern here... Second Saturday of the month... That doesn't correspond with the art walk at all Wish they would just do wasting away that Saturday and drop the other two some other time during the month to spread it out a little bit. It seemed like they had trouble doing so many different bottles released at the same time on the last go around.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have a link yet. My gf took a screenshot of the JWB post on their Instagram and showed me. I don't think they've announced anything on Facebook yet.

 

Screenshots from IG

 

Me likes Mezcal!