Toppling Goliath Releases and Updates

Dolla. Dolla. Bills....y'all.

And a dash* of hype to keep it one-hundid.

*metric fuck-ton

 

What an insult to their customers and fans who have supported them over the years. The quality of MD has gone down since B1 and yet they have the nerve to offer only a 2.75 oz pour "in a special espresso glass" when you go to pick up your overpriced 4pk. Don't sugar coat it, Clark. No one cares about a special espresso glass. You'd just rather squeeze out as many $100 4pks as possible than offer at least a full pour. You could at least open up your taproom when people are traveling from across the state/country to support you. You've made it work before.

This isn't even an event, it's a "give me your money and get out of here" scenario. How ridiculous.

 

The release said they're opening at 4:30 to the public.

This sounds identical to the Assassin/KBBS release, unless I'm missing something.

Until people quit falling all over themselves to pay ridiculous amounts of money for beer, breweries are going to charge a lot for these products. There's lots of bitching by consumers, but consumers set the market. I quit playing this game a long time ago, and am better off for it. I don't need to tick the greatest beer in the world off of my list. Until people get over that bullshit mentality and just simply enjoy great beer without turning it into a dick-measuring competition for yuppies with too much cash and too little else in their lives, we're going to see more of this. Sucks, but it's the way of the world.

 

This is a direct response to the demand, especially the demand in the after market.

TG creates the beer; why should they not receive the benefit of what people are willing to pay for it?

 

Consumers did not create an artificial shortage of product.

Most breweries increase production for their most sought after beers. TG seems to be intentionally limiting production in order to get this (and KBBS) into as few hands as possible.

They are throttling beer geek FOMO with expert strategy.

 

The B2 release was great. You got to go in (although if your buddy was in a different slot, you couldn't join them), have a 10oz (?) pour, and you could also have several offerings on tap. IIRC, SOSUS was on, etc., and you could even buy bottles of it in addition to your MD pack.

 

If the beer community just collectively said "fuck it" and quit lining up in droves for these products, the producer would be forced to change their approach.

That isn't happening any time soon, and we (and especially TG) all know it.

 

I remember that, and it was fun. Again, this is identical to the Assassin/KBBS release, which ended up being a lot of fun in that it forced people to check out the other Decorah options like C&C, T-Bock's, and Pulpit during the day, and then everyone could come back to TG when they opened.

So many of the people who come to these events don't bother taking the time to make a day of it. I can't tell you how many people I've seen at releases just grab their bottles and go, even after investing hundreds of dollars in just getting to Decorah. Because of that, I just can't muster outrage at TG's "come in, give us your money, and leave" mentality. Especially when they're going to have the taproom publicly open later on that day. It helps keep the process of distributing the bottles going quickly and efficiently, gives people an opportunity to experience the rest of the community.

If TG wasn't going to open at all that day, I'd definitely agree with you.

 

For those that don't want to drive a long distance for 1 4/pack for $100, this is a good change. I would expect with 8,000 bottles, there will be a lot more on the trade blocks for a much more reasonable ask.

 

TG doesn't make their money off of special releases like this, just like most other breweries who have a marquee beer like this that purchase tickets for.

The differentiating factor here as I said is that TG isn't trying to satisfy demand. They seem to desperately want to avoid the possibility that when the greater public finds out these beers aren't actually worth all this trouble, they will be less highly regarded.

Until they increase production and put this beer into the hands of more consumers, the hype will never die down. And when it comes to TG, this is by design. Every release likely increases the number of people that want to try it, instead of decrease, due to how few people ever actually get to. You're never going to see the community collectively say "fuck it" with these kinds of limited numbers.

It's not like they're distilling a rare substance. This is brew. Making more isn't too much to ask.

 

Intentionally limiting? Production has increased each successive batch of Assassin, MD, KBBS and Naughty Temple after all allowing more people to purchase it. Including kegs of Assassin sent out to places around the area for the release.

Just stating fact here.

 

I would love to see the numbers on this, especially considering some aren't even released annually. KBBS was woefully limited to an extremely blatant degree--it wasn't even trying to disguise the manufactured scarcity, in fact it was trumpeting it. This is their genius, after all.

 

KBBS wise for example:
B1 was 300 numbered with some excess unnumbered
B2 was approx 500 or more
B3 was over 1000

So doubling production each time creates manufacturered scarcity?

 

C'mon, you know they have way more capacity than that. I mean, that's approximately 3 barrels. It was probably actually more difficult to keep it at 1,000 than to make more than that.

 

I agree, TG releases 4-5 barrel aged beers once every 1-2 years. They can't produce more then 1000 12oz bottles of KBBS but Cycle, Bottle Logic, Side Project, etc can release world class barrel aged beers every month!?

 

I'm throwing my hat in the ring just so I can pick up bottles on my way to the Pulpit Rock anniversary. PR will almost certainly have better beer on tap and a much better atmosphere imo.

Also, I agree about the manufactured scarcity. Building the new brewery can only be an excuse for so long when BL, Side Project, etc are pumping out tons of new brews every other week. I don't honestly know the last non-hype stout or King Sue bottle release I was super excited about getting. Most of their Xhops series lately has been lackluster etc.

I guess I'm just a little envious of how many new exciting brews I'm seeing other big breweries pump out weekly. Trillium, Monkish, etc etc are all doing new recipe beers all the time whereas TG is still making the same old stuff they've been doing for years.

 

Yeah, but it seems pretty clear they're not trying to emulate Trillium/Tree House/Monkish, they've got grander aspirations. It feels much more like they want to move into the Surly weight class with this expansion and I would expect a corresponding increase in production and availability and probably more interesting things available on tap but not a wild shift in the number of different brews they're releasing.

There's an opening for someone to fill that space.

 

And it's being filled. As another poster mentioned, the PR party that day will have some incredible beers on tap.

 

Yup, PR's $ticker $hock was as good as a lot of TG's HypeStouts and it was a nice $5 for a 5 ounce pour.

 

Let's suppose a small brewery that brews some limited release, highly hyped barrel aged beers has the capacity to brew 4,000 12 oz bottles in a given period of time.

Let's suppose that brewer can choose to use that capacity by brewing 4 different beers in batches of 1,000 bottles each and sell them for $25 per bottle OR that brewer can choose to brew 1 beer in a single batch of 4,000 bottles, but he can only sell them for $15 per bottle because he is satisfying more of the demand.

In the first case (4 beers, 1000 bottles of each) he will have gross revenue of $100,000. In the second case (1 beer, 4000 bottles) he will have gross revenue of $60,000.

Which would you choose?