Hardywood Trickery

That "initial rush" lasted until around 6pm last year after they opened at 2pm. I swung by at 5pm thinking I would miss much of the line but it was still over an hour wait then. I thought I did hear one of their registers went down so they were only working with 1 POS and that was the reason for such the long waits. They also are opening up an hour earlier at 1pm much of the time on Saturday releases this year so that seems to be helping not stretch things out as late in the day too.

 

Wow. The quotes around initial were certainly justified if it last four hours. Hopefully that's not the case this year. You still got your bottles though, even with showing up later in the day?

 

@taplebr I didn't even stop to stand in the line. I just kept driving and hit a couple breweries in RVA. Bottles lasted until just after opening on Sunday last year and a very small amount did hit distro in the area so I ended up snagging a bottle once a shop near me got their 1 case.

 

Awesome, thx for the info and good luck to everyone going. I'm a big maybe at the moment.

 

It really depends on how HW handles it. The release this weekend might say a lot. While there are going to be a lot more bottles of Trickery than the 5th Anny beer, they might figure out that a ticket handout at 11 is a lot easier than people waiting in like for 3-4 hours past open to get allotments.

 

If anyone is interested, here's the GBS and variant release schedule on the board at HW over the weekend.

Nov 4 - GBS Pre-Release
Nov 5 - GBS
Nov 19 - Bourbon GBS
Nov 26 - Rum GBS
Dec 3 - Xmas Morning
Dec 10 - Kentucky Xmas

 

Goodbye wallet, it was nice knowing you.

 

No AB GBS like last year? Wonder if they'll have more Kentucky Xmas this go.

 

I'm curious whether they don't have something scheduled for the 17th even though it was not on the board. They went all the way up to the week before Christmas last year even though there was a month gap between GBS in early November and the barrels in early December last year. Or maybe double up with Kentucky on the 10th like last year.. I'm also pretty sure Rum GBS was not on the list last year. That was last released in '14 I believe.

 

While I will miss AB GBS, Rum GBS is super tasty.

 

Sorry for all the questions. Did they have separate lines for draft pours and bottles last yr? Don't think I'll be able to hang around for bottles but was looking to stop in for a few pours.

 

does Hardywood usually wait till close to release day to announce limits?

 

Yes. You can grab pours with very little wait and if you do happen to stick around and wait for bottles can be on their property to enjoy that pour while in line.

I think it was finally announced a few days before release last year so would expect them to make that information known by tomorrow if I had to guess.

 

So cats out of the bag, 5800 bottles of trickery at 4pp...wow that hell of a alot. Id be surprised if it did not last through the rest of the weekend. Win for everyone.

 

I'll be showing up Sunday around opening to bypass the Saturday long lines and lengthy waits.

 

5800 bottles available at the brewery. This will still see distro as well, as Hardywood said it's the same batch size as last year. Regardless, plenty to go around for sure.

 

Interesting. The HW rep I happened to run into in NoVA said distro only if they didn't sell out over the weekend. They said last year they set aside cases beforehand, this year they are not.

 

I couldn't find where they released the actual bottle count last year (not saying they didn't just didn't confirm). Maybe they were waiting to ensure they had the yield they expected before setting any aside?

Bright side to them not holding some for distribution, it will last longer so no need to wait in line all day. Bright side to throwing some to distro is it's never that much so it doesn't kill the brewery release and it's at least possible to snag a bottle if you can't make it to RVA.

I'd still like to know, though. If there's zero chance it's hitting distribution it would be cool if they'd confirm that.

 

I didn't ask, so you're probably right. I just figured based on last year that it would see distro.