Firestone Walker Barrelworks 2017 Liberations

Tickets go on sale in the morning (Feb 4, 11 am): $110, including 3 of each bottle, with the option to buy 3 more of each at the event.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/feral-one-sloambic-release-party-tickets-31759596809

 

My mistake, it's 10 AM. Tickets are on sale now.

 

Bought a ticket, but feel like this might be my last attempt. I know I was spoiled by unlimited bacon donut holes being two feet from unlimited Maltose Falcons, but the last few events I went to were pretty disappointing. Between that and FW's shifty massive price jump on their Vintage beers ($10/355ml for what used to be $13/650ml), I'm ready to accept that Duvel has changed the ethos. Don't get me wrong, I'll still drink a ton of their beer, it just won't warm my heart in quite the same way.

 

yeah, I barely got any of the wide release liberations. Think this may be the final liberation party, not that they do much of them anyway. But yeah. sigh.

 

I'd like to know where you got $13 650's? The cheapest I have seen is $15.50 at total wine. They may have been $13 like 5 years ago, but that was 5 years ago.

 

Yeah it's not quite fair to compare list price of the new bottle to discounted price of the old bottle. List price of the old format was $17.

On another note, why is beer the one commodity some of us expect to be exempt from inflation? Have the raw ingredients gotten cheaper? Have salaries and costs decreased? This is a luxury item.

 

Can't believe Duvel changed the ethos like that.

 

Apparently $0.06 per oz is the exact line between good ethos and bad ethos.

 

I bought the last several non-Anniversary Vintage 650ml boxed beers at Trader Joe's in SoCal for $13 but a few months ago. I bought the new 355ml boxed Bravo at the same exact Trader Joe's for $10 a few days ago. Think that's about as fair as it can get.

 

Yeah, I'm not that invested in this argument, but my critique was based on the price increase secondarily, and the declining quality of their release parties primarily. If you can find people who think the parties have been getting better since the Duvel acquisition, you're free to give me a sick burn.

 

Parties were getting worse before Duvel

 

I blame chemman

 

Yeah this is definitely it.

 

nothing on today's liberation?

 

That should tell you something about it if no one has said anything still.

 

What a difference from a year or two ago when folks were lining up for Liberations. Now, Krieky Bones, Agrestic and Bretta Rose sit on the shelves of Bev Mo and Whole Foods waiting for someone to finally buy them.

I love Barrelworks and for the most part the beers are excellent, but the market for $15 375's of wild beer is pretty small.

 

I missed the previous liberation, so I can't compare it to that, but it was probably an improvement over recent ones, though not as good as they were for the first two years or so. It was definitely a smaller crowd. I'd be curious how much of that was planned, and how much was ticket sales.

They put out a buffet spread of alligator sausage, linguica, cheeses, elk and bison sliders, several types of sushi, and cheesecake bites. The food was good, and it was more like being served lunch than the hors d'oeuvres they used to do. I miss those, particularly some of the more unique things they did, but this was a good option too, and others seemed to enjoy it as well.

The beer, as you'd expect with Barrelworks, was excellent quality. I would have liked to have seen something totally new available to try besides Fortem, though. They used to bring out some more unusual beers, and single barrel stuff. It was nice to taste the older vintages of Feral One and Zinskin, though. Also, there were no strong ales this time, which was a disappointment. They were a good counterpoint to the sours, and held up better against their intensity than Fortem and Generation 1. This year's SLOambic and Feral One are really good, but Bretta de Oro was my favorite.

Also, Barrelworks launched its growler program yesterday. They'll primarily fill De La Casa and its iterations, and occasionally other beers, I was told. They will only fill their 27.7 oz Klean Kanteen growler (no Barrelworks fills at Paso or Venice), which they were selling for $30 with a fill. Refills/empty growlers are $20. Hefty price tag, though not bad considered against their bottle prices, I suppose.

Overall, good event, but not great. If I'd never been to the old liberations I probably would have loved it. I don't want to sound too negative though, as I did have a good time, and will consider coming back if they do it again.

Beer List:
Generation 1
Fortem
Bretta de Oro
Peachy Bones
SLOambic
'15 Zinskin
'14, '15, '17 Feral One
La Piccola Virtuosa
La Piccola Pepe di Sichuan
De La Casa

 

As much as I love their beers, $15 for 375's of anything is pretty much going to be a deal breaker for me these days.

 

Perfect write-up. I actually liked the more substantial food options, rather than just hors d'oeuvres—it was the single serving of unimpressive "real food" at last year's anniversary that really stuck in my craw. The biggest missing element this year was the special/strong ales. Maybe that was always an odd fit at Barrelworks, but having those single-barrel one-offs, or wild stuff like Sour Saucerful, always made the anniversary parties seem kind of magical. Without that kind of "fan service", the party was a solid beer release party that would probably win over most others; Barrelworks just has the disadvantage of having to be compared to their own past efforts.

As for the beers on pour, I couldn't get enough of that '15 Zin. Bretta de Oro was also very good. Food-wise, those bison burgers with blueberry BBQ glaze and the blackberry cheesecake-y bites were delicious.