Maine Dinner Release

To get away from all the bitching and whining, I was back in Maine a month ago after moving to Colorado three years ago and had Dinner on tap at the brewery. I've had at least one bottle from most of the Dinner batches since the first release, and damn was this last batch one of the juiciest, best tasting beers I've ever had. It's definitely evolved over the years. I'd almost rank it right up there with swish. I got on the website the other day right when tickets went on sale and easily got a ticket for the 9am time slot and put my buddy's name in as the attendee. Can't wait to get my half a case.

 

Aaaaand there goes another $100.

 

Is the demand still high for over priced DIPAs in 500ML bottles?

 

These will sellout, but Dinner's taking a hit over the years due to this lame online ticketing

 

Can't say the ticketing system has had a negative impact on the demand or perception of Dinner - the format and price in a climate where there are more and more beers catching up, at lower cost, is the key issue. I think the ticketing system has helped Dinner, actually, in that more people have been able to try it that might not have been able to back when you had to line up in the dark.

It's an amazing beer still, but for 60% of the cost, I can get something 90-95% as good.

 

I'm more likely to try to get a ticket than I am to line up at 2AM like I used to.

How, if they sell out using the ticketing system, has Dinner taken a hit? They sell just as much, but without the pre-dawn line necessitating a bunch of people working security or setting up food trucks at ungodly hours.

 

Better beer options for less money + more frequency of them

The masses are starting to understand Dinner isn't worth putting the effort in to sign in online and do all the bs just to be disappointed when you find out you didn't get anything. MBC just seems significantly behind the times if they STILL can't brew dinner more than 4 times in a year.

Also, 2AM? You have problems bigger than this if you saw that was an acceptable time frame to go at...... I hopped in line everytime at 5:15-30am and walked out at 8am. At least with the line you knew where you stood.

 

Er... you're contradicting yourself here. You say that they will sell out (IE Dinner will sell through completely), but that people are not buying it like they used to because of the ticketing system.

Is the format hurting MBC? I'd say so. The price point and bottle size make it difficult to justify buying most of their products.

But this 'lame online ticketing' doesn't seem to be harming Dinner sales at all.

 

Amen. Once a year my wife and I make the trek up there, and we'll come home with a case of Lunch. I don't know why 12 bottles of it are $73. I'd love for MBC to start canning, or hell, I'm fine with 12oz bottles. Give me a 4 pack of tallboys or a 6 pack of 12oz bottles for $15 - $16 and I'll buy my weight in Lunch per year.

I got a case of Dinner back at the February release, and honestly, I liked Lunch better. Lunch is perfect (IMHO) because of how balanced it is, hopping the hell out of it just makes it wonky.

 

does anybody know why MBCO doesn't just brew this beer more often? ticketing, driving to Freeport in the middle of the night, yada yada yada. So much pain and suffering for the good customers -- just replace every other batch of Peeper w/Dinner and maybe things could normalize - no?

 

I expect it's the raw cost of ingredients. Dinner is likely a lot more expensive to make than Peeper or Lunch or Another One or MO, and likely takes a bigger chunk out of their hop supply than any of their other brews.

 

meanwhile BB, TH, Trill, Alchemist, HF etc etc etc are brewing weekly batches of beer w/ equiv profiles. not buying it,

 

Okay... if you have a theory, put it out there.

 

I think "normalizing" Dinner defeats the brand purpose behind Dinner.

 

Agreed IPAs aren’t costly and making this a seasonal release they are missing out on a lot of sales. MBC has always seemed out of touch with the market. It may cost more to make but the price generally correlated with the CoGs.

 

All of your arguments are moot until Dinner stops selling out, and I honestly don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

People have always resorted to the baseless MBCo defense of "they can't always get the hops."

Based on MBCos distro footprint and sales volume, there is zero reason to suspect they can't get the necessary hops contracts to produce this beer more than once a quarter.

Beers like Dinner are pumped out weekly by much smaller outfits.

It is a marketing maneuver plain and simple.

They make nice beer but at this point, I'm only buying Another one when it's fresh if I come across it

 

The bottom line is MBC is too expensive but people are still paying for it so why would they lower their prices? All of these Dinner tickets will sell out in an instant despite being $8 a bottle. I've seen the demand for Dinner on the trade markets decline a bit but they can still pull any sort of hops you're after.

So yeah, they're too expensive but they make really good beer. I think of MBC as a treat rather than a go-to. I splurge on Dinner and buy the occasional bottle but I'm not buying it by the case like other locals.

 

I think the current expansion in Freeport is tripling their potential output?

I just can't believe that they are going to strictly keep with the 500mL bottles @ $7-$10 apiece and the market is going to support 3x the output. but hey I'm just an alcoholic on a message board, what do I know. Price aside (a big aside) all their beers remain fantastic.