Bourbon County 2017

The inability for people to understand basic economic principles no longer surprises me.

 

Went to LP@10:30pm..my buddy and I were discussing throughout the evening how this line was going to cause all sorts of problems. We were lined up in the parking lot...it was zig zagging before going back out and around the building. The main prob was absolutely zero line control...with that many people waiting you'd think there'd be a better system? When the time came people were slow on packing up tents and we kindly waited as long as we could...we told people to find us in line and they coul go ahead if they were ahead of us...well apparently many weren't this nice as a mad rush of people just cut off majority of the line. We went from 300 to 591(which we determined after tickets were handed out)....it was douchebagery at it's finest..we called out a lot of people we saw trying to jump the line..alot of us were pissed. People arriving at 2 am and 3 am were checking out before people who arrived 4 hrs before...

Another complaint was the drinking...I get it, I love my craft beer but people drinking heavily having a massive public bottle share in a parking lot in the city and drawing unnecessary attention was bad. We saw the one guy who got so hammered he passed out in the porta john. And many others being obnoxious. Sharing one or two, that's cool.. getting hammered like a fool? Dumb.
My buddy was one of the people who called 911 for the porta john guy.. What's sad is the others who sat there at laughed at him..posted pics to social media instead of actually being a decent person and getting the dude help. Yeah he was an idiot but that doesn't mean you can't help someone? I thought our craft beer community was about that? That whole situation just left a bad taste in my mouth.

I think having goose staff or Binnys staff to hand out tickets early would help..having a dedicated direction of the line would help...having some more pos and pre packed allotments ready to go would help...and not being a douche...that would most definitely help

 

did anyone go to the beer temple release?

 

The BS that comes up every year was 2015 Rare pallet loads sitting at stores for a month in 2016? So by every year you are talking one?

The beer market in 2010 was substantially different that even a few years later. 99% of the general population didn't even know what OG Rare was. Regular sat on shelves and that was much cheaper that Rare. There were about 4,000 less breweries than today. How many brewpubs were there in Chicago at that time? Goose Island and Rock Bottom? Your example shows a time when barrel aged beer appreciation was in an embryonic stage and supply far outstripped demand.

 

Regarding everyone taking "the local's allocations", they are much larger since places/states that normally get variants and more reg didn't get any at all or very reduced. It mostly stayed in Chi, so the people came.

I think the sudden pullback on the allotments and lack of variants drove more out of towners to Chicago.

We certainly see plenty of Illinois plates in Michigan for Blacknote and I'm guessing for CBS. Make the drive and do the work. I don't feel I own the allocations.

Just my 2 cents and maybe partially the reason for more people. Now there are obviously other issues with the way the event was ran and people's not so good behaviors.

If the beer was spread out more it wouldn't be such a rat race, maybe. I'm sure GI could produce more but I can't imagine how much it would take to make it a "Shelfie". Cheers to all and have a safe weekend.

 

when did @Vav stop working at L.P.? could be a coincidence but maybe not...

 

Here’s how we make the Lincoln Park release go well. Hope Binnys is watching.

1. Binnys staff, Goose reps, and security needs to be present from the moment the first person lines up until it’s over.

2. Ban tents, heaters, grills, fire pits, RVs, etc. it’s a fucking store not a campground. Do everything in your power to discourage people from arriving the day before especially when the day before is Thanksfuckinggiving. Go be with your families nerds.

3. Stop drinking in line. First of all it’s illegal second of all are you an alcoholic you can’t go 8 hours without a beer. Drinking whalez all night plus no sleep then inserting yourselves into a crowd of 1000+ makes managing that crowd even harder. Plus all the trash it makes? It’s so fucked up. Why the police don’t walk that line writing tickets is beyond me.

4. Either don’t announce an allotment in advance or be super transparent about it. Know the bottle count and tell person #1280 that all they will get at that point is regular or whatever. Or just don’t say anything and keep it that way.

5. Allotments are pre packaged. Walk in here’s your box or bag that’ll be $219.50 cash or credit? Done.

 

A lot of good ideas here for sure. Just want to carry over the sentiment from Thursday into a negative situation. I appreciate the passion on here and am thankful for the discourse. Reading this thread was at least entertaining today haha

 

My wife did this as soon as we left yesterday but hasn’t yet received a response or acknowledgement of her comment.

Basically, Binny’s didn’t do this well enough. They saw the lines, had the news cameras out, saw the craziness during the consolidation etc. We didn’t even know they had handed out tickets until well after they stopped and, had we known exactly how far back we were, we might’ve decided to head elsewhere rather than spend another five hours waiting. This wasn’t our first time hunting on Black Friday, there were places we could’ve gone at that time and still had a chance at variants. The only reason we went to LP this year (first time ever) was the chance to possibly end up with a full allotment which seemed pretty much guaranteed based on all we were hearing early on about numbers and from the 7 am estimation. Live and learn and I’m still happy to have scored enough regular and barley wine to be satisfied but the fact that they need to own and attend to their mistakes is important. Our choices for buying variants now are limited to waiting in another line for hours or buying one for $60 from a shady bottle shop.

 

So I had my dad in NJ go to a local store that was carrying regular BCBS so that I could give them as Christmas gifts and the store was charging $20/bottle.

 

Why not? Don’t take this as an assumed fact - it’s your opinion and while clearly some agree with you there are quite a few that don’t.

You make it sound like people posing the idea of raising the price on the variants are weaklings that aren’t tough enough or something. I’m a bit torn on the idea, but I’m not gonna dismiss it out of hand.

Respect the point but I’m generally in favor of something that lessens the idea of waiting in line.

 

At what prices will the line be tolerable? It would have some impact, but I’m not convinced that higher prices (that would be tolerable in markets outside Chicago where AB InBev apparently desires to also sell the product) would drastically reduce the required wait. Solely my opinion, not based in any economic theory but backed up by the increasing numbers of people that continue to turnout despite price increases (in the form of a format change a couple years ago) and, in yesterday’s case, a rumored but mostly unknown price increase by Binny’s. Or the people that show up super early at a Jewel or smaller Binny’s even with a complete ignorance of the quantities actually available.

I continue to believe that yesterday’s crowd was largely a direct result of an increased “guaranteed” allotment at LP. This was especially appealing to people like me who were going to get up early anyway and just wanted a couple “extra” bottles; I changed strategies over prior years since my wife will not join the insanity as a mule and I’m not in the know enough about when to show up at other places to score variants. That said, I do feel for the people who showed up at 6am and missed out, the 1000 number was well know and it should have been better communicated down the line so they didn’t have to continue to waste their time.

 

Coastie liquor stores are shady places, 120min hit when I was visiting DC and $20 a bottle was the going price.

 

Goose Island is owned by a publicly traded company, I bet the shareholders would disagree. Prices could be doubled on at least the variants (excluding BW) and they would all still sell out. I don't care about those who say this is a rounding error to AB, it is still money being left on the table that could help pay down the debt or fund the dividend.

I have done LP 6 years in a row now and was shocked at how big of a mess it was this year. Maybe it is now time to turn this into a ticketed release.

 

I heard this exact sentiment from so many veteran LP people yesterday. One veteran LP gentleman who reassured us all for 6.5 hours that we would be good had a complete WTF look on his face when word came down that it was down to reg and bw when we were finally approaching the building.

EDIT - This Radio Swan my buddy gave me yesterday is keeping the flashbacks of yesterday at bay right now...

 

OR they could consider the hype created by frantic neckbeards lining up for hours (days??) and selling out beer in record time a form of marketing/branding. This not only creates media attention but also validates the fact that the company can make a world class beer and thus they know what they are doing. This could be considered a lot more valuable than adding a few zeros to less than 1% of their total beer sales. Might be why a lot of breweries make beers like this...

 

Decided to skip LP after hearing about the mess and glad we did. Would have missed a full haul.

On the other handing drinking coffe, prop and regular side by side.

Prop is stellar, regular is regular, and actually really disappointed in coffee. Thin and far to bitter.

Will hunt prop, northwoofs and reserve but not really upset about missing out this year. I hate the past was better nonsense but it just doesn't seem to be the same product it once was.

 

Just wondering if you are a shareholder? Being the established market leader in BA beers for many years, do they really still need the marketing? Would you say the AB legal counsel believe that this "marketing" is worth the potential cost of, for example, someone cutting in line, a fight breaking out and someone dying? I don't get how your last point is relevant today for Goose, they are no longer a small unknown brewery.

If you said this back in the late-2000s, I would agree, not in 2017 though. I would be willing to bet money that this event will not be the same in 2018, but I don't gamble, stock market is enough for me

 

I agree with all the points on supply and demand. If prices go up demand will go down, all you need to do is look at the Cycle thread. People used to line up and they would sell out day of release, they increased to $30-$35/bottle and now it lasts for a week or more.

Not saying anyone is weak, but essentially people are saying they want to freeze out those with less disposable income so they can get their beer easier. Yes, a portion of that will come from resellers but certainly not all, a lot will come from average people that want the beer but don’t want to pay the inflated price, or can’t pay the inflated price. Maybe they would have bought 3 to enjoy over a few month period but instead will buy 1, or none. Asking breweries to raise prices and make a much higher profit margin for those reasons doesn’t seem very beer advocatey. While I have enough disposable income and can afford to pay anything, I refuse to ask someone to charge me more than a reasonable profit margin on sheer principle alone.