The Veil Brewing - Richmond

Thanks Tomcat11 and Beernuts. I'm thinking Mekong as a lunch stop is a must for me.

 

Also making my first trip to Veil tomorrow, but not sure exactly when I'll be getting up to Richmond. What would be a reasonable time to arrive to ensure getting both releases? How quickly do they usually sell out of cans?

 

They will not sell out of cans tomorrow, especially with those limits.

 

That's tough to answer but if your trying to grab Saturday's release, I would probably get there an hour and a half early.

If you decide to just grab Tuesday's release, stay warm and show up at anytime, cheers!

 

Just had my first Veil - Crucial Shredder - and was thoroughly impressed. If I had tried it blind, I'm not sure if I could have differentiated between it and some TH or Trillium IPA's.

The fact that they don't sell out on day of release will change soon - enjoy it while you can! I know I certainly will tomorrow, not having to worry about missing out!

 

Thanks for the help!

 

I think the reverse might be just as likely. As more breweries put out amazing beer, there will no longer be a need to stand in line for it.

Combination of market saturation and people moving on to the next thing.

I've already started to see some beers/breweries/events where the hype has died down from lines & chaos to "oh, cool."

 

I could see that. However when quality reaches a certain level, all that goes out the window. The "just good, not great" breweries hype dies out resulting in reasonable crowds for everything but special releases, but the truely great ones only get crazier. It could also differ greatly down here versus other areas of the country, but at least speaking from a NE perspective, that has been my experience over the last couple years as the craft beer scene has really exploded.

 

They do sell out on the day of release plenty of times. Depends on the release and limits, they just won't with tomorrows cans.

What would be great is if sometime in the future they can expand to the Trillium level, where you can go pick up multiple kinds of great IPA's pretty much anytime you'd like.

 

This is my hope. Having a Saturday release is a good sign. But ultimately it would be great if they'd say something like "Canning today for release at 4PM - Crucial Taunt. 1 case limit" a couple times a week.

 

Yeah trillium is a breeze. Only went once but it was surreal, felt like I was cheating walking in with no line. Only downside there is that sometimes you can end up with beer that's been on the shelf a couple weeks and I find their beer has a really short shelf-life. A bunch of their IPAs looked like snow-globes after 2-3 weeks and lost a lot of their flavor.

 

I have never been to Trill, they don't keep the beer cold? That explains a couple of the cans I've gotten in trades then!

And that would definitely be a downside but I feel like Veil would insist the beer be kept in the fridge, and it would take a while before they were sitting on enough product for that to be an issue of them having couple week old IPAs for sale. I bet they'd start kegging more and sending it out to their limited distribution if that started happening. Still, I'm all for them giving that model a go over just Tuesday can releases.

 

Saturday releases twice a month would be cool. Maybe split releases so each one had an IPA/DIPA and some other style.

 

Nah, they keep it cold, but I've been before and bought a case of Galaxy Fort Point and Melcher St that were both 3+ weeks old (they hadn't sold out yet). They were fine for a couple days, but about 1-2 weeks later had so much protein that I started drinking them out of the can they looked so ugly.

Yeah I can't imagine the Veil would be able to sit on any of their hoppy beers for 3 weeks. It seems like the sweet spot is where a brewery can have beer last through the end of the week, but not have to hold on to it much longer. So either making 1 huge batch on a Tuesday that lasts through Saturday/Sunday, or releasing smaller batches throughout the week (more like what Tree House does). Either way, I'm pumped to hear the Veil is doing so well (and sorry you guys have to deal with longer lines, etc . . . )

 

Yeah, I had the same experience with a Vicinity bottle a friend picked up at the brewery. He was super impressed with the beer on draft, and my bottle was just completely lacking the punch I was looking for. Didn't have a bottle date I don't think, but it was sweet and boozy, with TONS of floaties.

Disappointing for my only real experience with Trillium (other than the Launch Beer he also brought me, which was fine).

 

Final counts for today's release.And for those interested in line status the most recent update from around 3:45pm was only about 33 in line. No need to rush unless you are looking for the Saturday's leftovers but seems like getting in and out should be pretty easy going all evening.
______________________________________

~Master Shredder-5.5%-our aromatic house IPA
(approx 175 cases; $14+tax/4-pack; 3x 4-packs per person limit)

~Personvl Spvce-8.5%-DIPA with 100% Galaxy hops
(approx 185 cases; $16.50+tax/4-pack; 3x 4-packs per person limit)

We still have some cans left over from Saturday's surprise can release. Here's what's left:

~Benjelz-5.6%-Farmhouse Pale Ale with Citra Pure Leaf and Galaxy
(11 cases; $13+tax/4-pack; 3x 4-packs per person)

~Feel Feelings-5.4%-Helles Lager
(32 cases; $12+tax/4-pack; 3x 4-packs per person)

 

Plenty of cans left, including the helles lager from Saturday. I got here at 5 and there was no line. Also whatever burn people were getting from Extra Kreme is gone. Its very tasty right now.

 

That's very good to hear about Extra Kreme. I assume you had it on draft?

 

I had it to @beernuts i really don't get the hate at all. It's different but this "burn" people refer to is nonexistent for me.

 

Enjoyed a CT3 and now a half pour of Extra Kreme - loved the CT3, and think the EK is solid AF. No off flavors or anything remotely wrong.

Cool tap room atmosphere and bar staff killing it. These beers are on par with Trillium and Tree House, but with literally zero hassles. Cherish this time, Richmond - within a year the word will be out on Veil and your casual Tuesday releases will be a thing of he past.

Ps- gonna leave a can of TH C32 with some random customer on my way out the door. If it's one if you, hope you enjoy!