Firestone Walker Barrelworks 2017 Liberations

Next Liberation is October 14th: Peachy Bones, Zinskin, and Reginald Brett.

http://www.firestonebeer.com/brewery/barrelworks-bottle-release.php

Limited to 6 free samples this time.

 

Only 6 free samples? Wtf.. Yeah ok Firestone has lost their godamn mind.

 

6 free samples and 6 bottles, two of each? Come on. That just seems...... pointless. I thought the gap in liberations were to make sure they were solid. This just feels like it's phoned in.

Man, I miss the old days of liberations.

 

There is also a 12 bottle, four of each ticket. But the 6 sample limit is really off-putting. It sounds like only the bar will be open, as well, so no stations to thin out the crowd, if there is one. There's a good chance I'll decide to go (I've been hoping they'd bottle Reginald Brett), but I can't say I'm that excited.

 

ZinSkin is probably my favorite Barrelworks beer but I don't like either of the other two very much. And it's surprising to take away one of the biggest selling points in the unlimited tasters.

 

Oh, what's this? It didn't sell out? Yeah. Honestly, I won't be surprised if the whole barrelworks program gets phased out within a few years. Corporate just doesn't care about it and it seems like Venice gets more love than Barrelworks.

 

To be fair, Venice is getting more love because it's newer. Barrelworks has been established whereas they've just ramped up things in Venice in the last 12 months. I don't see it going away but I think they probably need to rethink how these bottles are released. I think part of the issue is that they are sending some bottles out to distribution and obviously some of the value of the liberations has decreased in people's minds with removing the unlimited tasters. I was always surprised that was a part of the deal to begin with but taking it away will certainly turn people off.

 

I just wish they would stop forcing you to buy sets. ZinSkin Batch 2 is one of the best BarrelWorks releases ever. Its really fantastic. But I dont want to be forced into buying other bottles just to get ZinSkin. Thats like shady bottleshop politics stating you have to buy X&Y to be able to buy Z.

 

Anyone catch the ig post mentioning they were even selling tickets at the door for this event? I guess it's not even sold out so I can eagerly wait for it at the Venice shop in a few weeks and not have to buy a bundled set. HUZZAH!

 

They only pre-sold 54 tickets, so yeah, these will all be available at FW locations. They did do unlimited pours, after all. They also offered a bunch of archive beers and magnums to attendees. Food was nice: bison burgers, meatball sandwiches, ahi wonton tacos. I can't see them continuing to do these events though, if that's all the interest there is.

Taplist:

10 Buck Chuck
Agrestic '17
Bretta Blanc
Champs de Fraises
Full Pint 10th Anniversary
Krieky Merlin
Love/Haight
Parabajava
Peachy Bones
Reginald Brett
Walkers Cuvee #2
Zinskin '15
Zinskin '17

 

54 tickets.....ouch. If they would just release them through the tasting room with no ticketing, and not being forced into buying more than you want, I guarantee more locals would be there.

 

Must've been mostly employees being forced to buy tickets to their own event lol

 

That happened.....

 

From instant sellouts to a complete lack of interest in only two years for basically the same beers.

Fad? Increased distribution? No more FOMO? Probably a combo of all three.

 

Combo of that, I can pick up a couple bottles at a local store or Venice, and there are lots of breweries making sours so that helps saturate the market

 

I feel like most of the beer was getting worse from batch to batch.

 

No one cares about the wild ales and people went nuts when they posted the rye barrel vanilla parabola. I wonder if anyone at FW thinks it might be a good idea to make more beers that people get excited about...

 

Exactly. This was the same reaction to a Green Cheek collaboration that produced.....a German Lager. Matt Brynildson's response: "us brewers drink lagers".

 

Maybe they're just trying to not follow the herd and produce only IPAs and Imperial Stouts. I like the fact that they are brewing other types of beers and would hate to see them become lemmings and narrow their output to just a couple of styles. Is that what we beer drinkers want, less choices available? I don't think so.

 

ugh! Why aren't they making more hazy IPA's using Citra, Galaxy and Mosaic? Don't they want to make money and sell great trade bait?! UGH!1 Get your shit together, Firestone!

I actually really liked the FW/Green Cheek collab and was happy to be able to buy some in the tasting room over the weekend. Really solid offering and let's not forget, before it became Pumpkin pie adjunct season, this is the time for those Oktoberfest beers.