Night Shift Brewing

Are they brewing anything besides Santilli at Smuttynose or is that it?

 

When did this start? I wasn't aware they are contracting out their brewing

 

Can we stop calling it a change to the barrel society and start calling it what it is: the elimination of the barrel society. Barrel aged beers are now available to everyone, with a small amount being sold via presale to people who respond to an email (still the general public). Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing. I stopped paying for the BS when the beers I was getting were of worse quality and were SIGNIFICANTLY less exclusive than the NS beers that I actually wanted. I was sick of paying for exclusivity and still having to wait in line to miss out on Apple brandy el lechedor etc. I just don't like the shitty PR spin. The barrel society is gone, it's not an email list.

 

I just want more Elevensies and that wasn't even a Barrel Society beer.

 

Bingo. They could have made BS work by taking thier best beers and making them BS offerings. Instead they released mostly subpar beers no one card about, didn't hold up on thier end to only sell extra bottles to BS members, and botched the draft line so bad it was crazy.

My wife bought it for me 2 years and I asked her to stop and find no reason to put my money towards them now outside of a rogue ohtt every now and again. Still have a bitter taste in my mouth from the experience.

Glad it's dead so no one else gets hosed but the spin is cringy.

 

Certainly this is the end of the barrel society and the start of something different. I think if they were being totally honest they'd say that the reality is that the BS no longer makes economic sense for them. As I understand the point of these sorts of things its to allow smaller breweries to be able to afford to invest in BA beers as well as to fund their experimentation. You aren't necessarily getting their best beers but you are getting a window into what the brewery is looking to expand into.

Anyhow doesn't seem like anyone is really mourning its demise. I think the new approach is intriguing. Should reduce the long lines for special releases. I'd love to go this weekend for their bottle sale at 11 AM but not sure I want to deal with the line.

 

I had no idea that they were contract brewing some of their stuff. I guess Everett is at capacity?

The phrasing on this post is a bit confusing, but it sounds like it's a lot more than just Santilli:
http://mybeerbuzz.blogspot.com/2017/08/night-shift-santilli-american-ipa-now.html

 

Hopefully the not-barrel-society presale thing will be successful and they can move to that model for all releases so that line-waiting is minimized.

 

Yeah, if you're a small brewery short on cash, getting people to pay for your beer before you brew it helps a lot. But by taking the money up front, you're also committed to producing a certain volume of a certain number of barrel aged beers within a certain time frame, and that's probably not conducive to maximizing the quality of those beers. And since the money that the NSBS was bringing in is probably a drop in the bucket anyway at this point, moving to this new system is the best thing for everyone. NS gets more flexibility in their production schedule, customers get the beers they want with less hassle.

 

Just wanted to add my 2 cents as I loved NS during our recent visit to Boston. I'm from PA and we traveled there for our anniversary in August. We hit NS up around 10am on a Friday and it wasn't overly crowded. Took home some Whirlpool, Santili, The 87 and Swell. They were all fantastic beers. We also visited Treehouse twice that week and Trillium as well. These breweries have spoiled me and were planning our next trip back already!

 

Did you mean 11 am? They don't open until then.

And outside of special releases or special events, they likely won't be busy that early. Even on weekends I don't think they're busy at 11 am. Just an FYI for when you return.

 

So, is the contract brewing confirmed? Somewhat surprised that wasn't formerly announced or located on their website anywhere?

 

I'm interested in the answer to this too. And find it slightly ironic that the topic is following a discussion on how transparent NS is!

(To be clear, I don't mean this as a slight. I respect Night Shift's willingness to engage its customer base and to adapt its procedures and learn from mistakes/experience.)

 

This model doesn't reduce lines. In the long run it's going to make them worse and make it harder for you to acquire beer.

If you consider that people who don't have the ability/time/desire to wait in lines now have access to these beers via presale, this basically means that there's the same amount of beer available but more people attempting to get it - and LESS beer available at the brewery. You'll see roughly the same length of line with less beer. So you'll need to arrive earlier than previously to guarantee yourself beer.

 

Huh? You just buy it ahead of time and as long as you get there by the pickup deadline it's yours. No line.

Well I guess I feel like the willingness to wait in line is a shitty way to allocate beer. I'd rather see a lottery, or failing that a race to the refresh button that occupies 30 seconds instead of half a day.

 

If you're lucky enough to be able to pre-order one. Per their email "The public will still have a chance to purchase the majority of these beers, but a portion of all bottles will be pre-sold via the NSBS '18 email list". The reality of the situation is that the email list is going to be significantly larger than the BS has been, and the number of bottles being sold via presale is going to decrease significantly from the number of bottles available to the BS. In demand beers (the ones that would generate lines to begin with) are going to sell trough their presale immediately. Now you're left with less supply for the rest of the general public with roughly the same demand. This leads to lines that start earlier.

 

Sorry, my first post wasn't clear--hopefully they will move entirely to presales. Heck, they could do it for every beer, even mainline beers. Just sell it all online. If it's not sold out by release day, the rest of the inventory can be sold to walk-ins.

 

The type of person who buys BA beers are probably the type who sign up for the mailing list. That should cover the bulk of immediate demand that would have formed the lines. I just don't think there will be lines for the beers open to the general public besides which they can then release the beers to the public on a weekday rather than a weekend or other busy time.

 

Ehhh, not sure about that. I'm guessing that a good portion of the people who are actually willing to stand in line for a Night Shift special release are also going to know about this email list. If most of them can pre-order it, that will actually cut down on the line.

Really though, we're going to have to see how it plays out in practice. We don't know enough about the variables here to make good predictions.

 

For people like me, for whom waiting 20 minutes in line for beer is almost never worth it, this is all positive with no downside. Having any chance at reserving a bottle via presale (even a slim chance) is better than the no chance I would have had by not attending the release due to the lines.