Hill farmstead in philly area

Unfortunately Hill Farmstead beers in the Philly area is on a hiatus for a few months. Hopefully this situation will be different in another few months.

Cheers!

 

Enjoyed some Edward at Bru about a month ago, but that's the last I've seen of the HF in the city since then.

 

Purely speculation - but maybe during nice weather months they have more demand at the brewery, and during the winter and muddy spring they have more spare beer to distribute?

 

Nope. Shaun Hill has placed the Philly area in a 'time out' for a period of time (hopefully a short period of time) for a reason other than beer supply. I have my fingers crossed that come September-ish we will see kegs of Tired Hands again.

Cheers!

 

Any chance you can share the reason behind the 'time out' period? What did we do wrong

 

I don't think it is my place to get too specific here. I don't want to 'add fuel to the fire" and potentially irritate Shaun Hill here. I am a HUGE fan of Hill Farmstead beer and I really just want this 'time out' to expire and drink tasty Hill Farmstead beers again.

Cheers to tasty Hill Farmstead beer!!!!!

 

FWIW, this happened to NYC once a few years back, and the reason was that a certain bar held a keg of edward back for (i believe) a few months for their anniversary, and shaun found out it was tapped months after it was sent which stopped hill shipments to NYC for quite a bit of time. now i don't know anything about the philly situation, but wouldnt surprise me if it were something similar...

 

Hopefully Everett and Abner are back to their old selves by the time his beers return.

 

Geez, punish an entire city because 1 bar held a keg for a party? That seems like an overblown response....

 

you realize overblown responses are kind of the norm for HF? Also, if he can't control what the distrib does with the beer once the distrib has it he can only control what he sends to the distrib... guess onus is on the distrib to make sure places do as HF wishes with the beer if they wish to continue to get it

 

Makes sense. I just thought maybe the response would be to punish the specific bar who broke their rule, not an entire city. But, I guess they can do whatever they want, they make a quality product and want their customers to have access to it fresh.

 

They do seem to tightly control things. I was at a place for an 11am tapping of some HF and they got a call from HF reminding them not to sell any growlers. Apparently that is another "violation". With that said, I fully respect their right to manage their releases as they wish.

 

At their own tap room absolutely. Once they send beer out for distribution they need to accept that a bar may not do things exactly the way they would do it. We all know this level of micro-management is par for the course but punishing an entire city is ridiculous.

 

they don't have to send their beer, if they wish for it to be handled a certain way and provide the beer under the impression it will be handled the way they wish and then they find out it isn't they can do whatever they please

does that suck... sure... but that is the way of it and I applaud them for it.

 

You're right they don't have to distribute anything which is why he never distributed outside of a small footprint for years. Once the beer leaves your door your ability to control exactly how it's served goes down to zero. At that point its simple trust that people will follow your instructions and terms. Even then the ability to set terms are only enforceable by refusing to distribute beer to that bar again. He flat out admitted that he had no legal recourse to prevent the DC fiasco a few years ago (different circumstances but same result).

Honestly, even though I disagree with it in principle, I'd accept him exerting influence on the distributor to drop the elbow on the offending bar. But if he's upset that a specific bar broke the terms he set with the distributor then have the distributor punish the bar, not the entire network.

 

Respect goes a long way with the right people. Shaun went to college in the Philly area and made friends with beer people before HF was brewing.

Bella Vista seems to be the Philly distro for HF. I remember going to the cambridge in 2013 for a Hill event because no other bar had kegs even for PBW. If they want to be the middle ground for HF beer, they are responsible for where the kegs go and how the place go about tapping them. If the right salesperson is enlisted, this should be clear.

Most established bars in Philly can be expected to respect the wishes of a brewery to tap a beer fresh and not sit on it. We all know that a keg from HF will sell quickly (without growlers) and without disrupting a daily tap list.

- Joe

 

Does anyone know the establishment that was the offender?

My money is on The Beer Store (Philly, Malvern, Southampton).

 

As much as people like to bash them, I don't think it was the Malvern store. I've asked for a growler of HF when they first started getting them last year and they were very adamant that they can't fill growlers with HF.