Bourbon County 2017

Pretty much This. Binny's and GI will not care unless they have a reason to care.

That said, IF they did care, someone bein there early to pass out tickets without additional restraints seems to me to be one of the most nonsensical ideas because of lack of ability to enforce. How would you keep someone from getting a ticket early and leave as often as they want?

The only viable option I can come up with for management IF they wanted to is to do it much like Duke University did with their basketball tickets years ago (not sure that they still do this);

People lined up days in advance. At various times (at random) someone would come out and blow a horn. If you were not there to confirm your place in line (due to sleeping or otherwise), you lost it. I envision this being implementable at Binny's by doing the same thing, but perhaps using a new set of tickets every 45 minutes or something. If you do not have the last color ticket of #45, you don't get the new one. Go to the end. This eliminates line jumpers. Anyone - how? Because then only #46 can get the new 45 and so on. You can also enforce drinking if you so choose by this method. This method would also reduce the number of people Binny's or GI would need to use overnight. If you add cattle fencing or some type of fence in a 1-lane fashion, this becomes even easier.

Just because I think what I have said is a good idea does not mean I think that Binny's changing is realistic.

 

Prop day easily had 10-15 POS, and the size of the fulton taproom is easily a fifth of the space binnys. Press two buttons and swipe a card, easy peasy. Proof of concept for Goose, if conspiracy theories are your thing.

(Yes, I know there's distribution related things as to why they potentially can't do this, a man can dream).

 

Yeah I'm done with binnys for black friday too. I should have realize in 2015 when Binnys started sending most of the company allotment to one store.Binnys went from the best option for BCBS on BF to the absolutist worst option if you live in Chicago.But I guess that happens when a store manager creates an awesome event and AB-Inbev turns around and turns it into a marking ploy.

 

The eBay thing is weird. A friend of a friend bought a lot of 12 regular bottles on eBay that were "empty but full of flavor". I think this is the way to cheat around Binny's policy of no selling alcohol. And some sellers probably ship full bottles to the buyers. But some send empty bottles and the buyer has no recourse.

And don't sleep on that Well's Banana Bread beer! It was a craft beer gateway for me!

This would work, but as others have said, is going to cost Binny's money for employee time and thus I have no expectation they would ever do it.

 

I don't know if people have forgotten or weren't there to witness it, but this is how it used to be before Vav created the Black Friday event. You'd randomly be shopping at Binny's and bam, coffee bombers on the shelf. I remember getting Bramble Rye because I saw a post by him (here? Twitter? I forget) that they had just received it, first come first serve. There was still hype and they'd go pretty quick but none of this nonsense.

Then there were the pre-variant days (2009? 2010?) where it just gathered dust on shelves because paying $14/4 pack or whatever was absurdly expensive.

 

The whole BF situation is just not geared to benefit the consumer. I was out at my parents for Thanksgiving and considered driving back to the city, going to a suburban 7am jewel release, or hitting the local binny's. Ended up sleeping in and went to the local Binny's at about 8am (I'm not much of a line waiter) to gauge the line. There was about 80 people so I figured why not, they made it seem like they got a lot of variants at all their locations. I stayed and got one variant - one of the last coffees. The Binny's employees obviously knew the allocation they had and the amount of people in line, and they could have came out and announced allocations. I'm sure people behind me or even in front of me might have deemed it not worthy to wait for one variant or just regular. Sure, Binny's loses a customer that day, but the regular would sell anyways. It's not like they're going to get a marginal sale on another product from the bcbs buyers in line.

From there, I drove over to a 10am Jewel event store release and got there about 9:30. There was about 40 people in line with what seemed like a 3x bigger allocation than the previous Binny's. Most people went through the line twice, getting a near full allocation (except reserve - only 1-2 cases of reserve) each time. I then read about the LP debacle on here and couldn't help but laugh when I walk into my local city grocery store and see 8 cases of Northwoods with a price tag of 39.99/bottle. The same store that had 6 cases of 2016 BW sitting out for a year - first at 29.99, then at 19.99, then at 14.99. (No I won't tell you which store, although it's been mentioned prev in this thread, because I don't think the Porsche SUV driving owner needs any more money from gouging it's local customers). Can't help but laugh even more when you see full cases of variants being sold on all the FB groups, stacks of Reserve cases in other states, etc.

I don't know if it's a distributor or Goose who decides what stores get what amounts, but when the options in an ever growing consumer base are waiting in increasingly crazy and longer lines to pay retail or paying 2x retail to "shop local," the brewery should cut out the middle man. I was fortunate enough to get prop day tickets this year, and it just seems like Goose could do a similar lottery event where each winner and guest can get one of each beer.

 

This store happen to also have rare on the shelf up until about 6 weeks ago? If so, I know
Which one you’re talking about.

 

I found a couple bottles of Northwoods at fair prices, so far haven't found any other variants (besides Barleywine) but also haven't tried very hard. I don't feel like hunting anymore.

 

Apart from me getting to Binnys Grand earlier than the time you got to your local one, this was pretty much my experience exactly. Got Reg, BW and one of the last coffees. Had I known how little variants they had I don't think I would have bothered spending 1.5 hrs in line. In hindsight I should have just gone for a few regulars from anywhere else (walgreens, costco, etc) and been happier. Mind you, it could have been worse, I could have tried going to Binnys LP.

 

Yes

 

Yeah - I was lucky but can't help but feel for those who dealt with that debacle and got shut out, not what they anticipated, etc. Especially when so much seemingly goes to random stores that charge near secondary prices.

 

Yeah, fuck that place. The beer guy last year was all “we like to take care of our customers” and had a stash of coffee and prop in the back, which i was super stoked for until I went to checkout and it was like $65 for the 2 bottles. I begrudgingly paid because I was in shock, but when I stopped in and saw northwoods for $40 I just shook my head and the went on Facebook to leave a shitty 1 star review.

That’ll show ‘em.

 

What is most annoying about this to me is that I went to Southport Jewel (aka an "event" store) and Lakeview Binny's, and I think they both got less Northwoods than your local city place. The distribution of the beer is so puzzling and frustrating.

 

There's a reason some retailers are trying to jump out of the Goose Island game. There have definitely been some pros to the acquisition, but there have also been some aspects that have it looking exactly like everyone feared.

 

While walking into Binny's on Friday morning for the release we asked the manager how many bottles of the variants do you have? He replied I can't tell you, if I did they'd fire me. There was one case of Reserve and Northwoods for one if the larger Binny's. The plus side, I was checked out in 10 minutes and on my way to Jewel.

 

Hey guys, this thread is bad/depressing enough...we don't need any more Duke references.

Thanks.

 

Can't tell if you're acknowledging that everyone should hate on Duke or upset that everyone should hate on Duke.

 

He's a Michigan State guy, it's pretty unlikely that it's the latter.

 

In case there's any confusion, everyone should hate on Duke.