The Veil Brewing - Richmond

Yeah some prepaid pickup allotment of some kind would have been great. Veil loves lines though.

Then a 10,000 fb comments thread with everyone that didn't get the lottery. haha.

 

I caught what appears to be Matt responding to a comment under his own fb account instead of Veil's before deleting it. This is one way to go about it. Try to downplay what's going to happen just to feed the ego and then when it is crazy they will come out saying they were "completely blown away by the support and ya'll killed it." HA


" We are anticipating being able to walk in daily around 7:30pm-CLOSE with minimal lines and being able to get full allotments from that day’s release and potentially previous days’ releases. There will be plenty of beer and we will be running things more efficiently than ever to make sure the line is expedited."

 

I'm not expecting a week of long lines. There aren't enough people in the area to support that much line waiting and beer buying. With the releases spread out through the week, I'm sure there will be days that people line up and maybe some things will sell out early, but I bet it will be a situation where you can roll up after 7 and get most things with no wait.

It does suck for out of towners who want to get some of everything, but I think there will probably be a lot left towards the end of the week.

 

You are probably right, unless it turns out to be a week of like NNAA or AB CoW releases in which case they'll go to Plan B as noted by @TomCat11. I want SF cans and I want some of the bottles. Vanilla was amazing last year. It's possible someone could show up on Saturday and they're still selling Green Ferrari and SF cans on when Vanilla SF comes out, but I'd be surprised.

 

I was hoping the anniversary party would be a yearly event, the first one was ran smoothly and was a great time, even the tickets were distributed fairly (online and local) but now it’s a week long celebration.

 

I'm excited to try that White Miata today.

Also in case anyone didn't see their latest IG post, they only yielded 60-85 cases of the double coconut Hornswoggler, so the limit is now 1 4-pk pp.

 

I like that they drastically cut the limits so more people can ultimately walk away with this one than would have originally if people maxed or even would have just gotten 1/2 the allotment. I'm sure some people will be upset they can get more but this way it allows at minimum 360 people to get a 4pk. So no reason to have this reduction cause people to line up earlier than normal.

Also if anyone didn't see....

 

Yeah I really like that they cut the limit to 1/pp, should make for an easy day.

 

I'm really excited about that one. I can't make it up today but I'll be in RVA this weekend so I'm really hoping that one hangs around.

This is where I come down on it too. It's fine they're doing tons of releases throughout the week but I liked that the party was an event, and a flawless one at that. Even when it started raining it was totally manageable with people under tents and crammed inside. The VIP allotment pickup was a huge highlight and that part being optional was the best. My friend I went with just bought a couple 4 packs, I got the whole shebang and we both felt it was fair (even if I'm not a CCAA fan to start with and that was not a good batch). I get they have "literally be SO MANY cans and bottles" this time, but it's not an event. I'm sorry people complained about wanting refunds on tickets - that's their problem not Veil's since it was clearly stated from day one.

 

What happened with refunds? I don't remember.

 

Definitely agree with this. The Veil should not have even stated this being a reason for the format change. The rules last year non-transferrable / non-refundable so if someone even reached out asking for a refund the given response should have been NO since that was stated from the beginning. Simple and done with. People got upset because they purchase a ticket like this and something came up "last minute" that you then asked for a refund. Sorry, that's the risk you take so whether you got injured, had a death in the family, something else came up etc it was clearly stated. Your loss even if it comes off lacking empathy.

The format change is one of the biggest problems with Veil. I'm not sure if they are just perfectionists that are never satisfied even if something comes out well. Consistency is not their strong suit at events or at beer. They are always tweaking even if it doesn't need to be tweaked. Just look at how often they alter their beers taste from batch to batch. Their thought into events seem similar. Why change up what worked well last year....

 

They used that as part of the rationale behind no ticketed event complaints, they posted this at least 3 different times in comments yesterday:

The Veil Brewing Co. There will literally be SO MANY cans and bottles. They will definitely carry over from day to day. We are estimating 1100-1500 cases of cans(the most cases we ever packaged in a week) and probably 6-13k bottles(1-2k bottles per brand-*with the exception of Kentucky Reserve SF Box Sets and magnums*). There will be plenty to go around. This is the best way to spread this out fairly. We had multiple issues last year with people wanting refunds and exchanges for non-refundable/non-transferable tickets last year. We will also be running to go purchases like Dark Daze, and adding additional POS units to help expedite purchases.

The rest of what they say is reasonable, but that's a big "so what?". It said everywhere when we bought them non-refundable/non-transferable. That's buy at your own risk. Even Trillium is going to have a ticketed event for max like 350 people (vs. 900 over 3 sessions at Veil last year). It says in like 9 differently places "the purchaser must attend, no refunds etc. etc.". I'm just saying that if someone bought a ticket and can't go, that's not on The Veil and shouldn't be a reason to not do a ticketed event.

 

Oh I didn't even see that they cited people asking for refunds as a reason to not do tickets this year. Those people are idiots, it seems obvious that you can't do refunds for an event with limited tickets, especially after you announce that tickets are sold out.

 

Exactly. If you bought Taylor Swift tickets and your car breaks down on the way to the show, she doesn't owe you money back.

I get the feeling from the "exchanges" that people wanted to swap sessions to be with friends, I saw plenty of posts trying to work that out. Really that could have been done if you were the "guest" on a ticket outside of involving Veil so whatever.

And yeah, personally this frustration comes from a sense of "I can't go to every event, I can't go to every release, I can't drive to RVA 4 times in a week to grab 4 stout variants - but damn I'm gonna do that anniversary party each year because it was awesome." The could have done everything the same, but made Saturday "Anniversary Party Day" - 3 ticketed sessions, sold allotments that day only to ticket holders (and done vip pickup). Sunday be the same capstone clean up no-ticket guest tap takeover with all cans/bottles leftover from the week up for grabs.

 

Yeah I thought it was odd they cited that as a reason, how many people would even have fallen in that category?
I would have guessed more the very vocal people that were pissed they missed out when the online tix sold out so fast. Though to be fair, tix were available in person for awhile, friends of ours strolled in hours later that afternoon with no line and still had the choice of session.

 

Exactly, I scored tickets online, but if I had struck out I could have driven to Veil and had hours to spare before they ran out of tickets. Online order just saved me the drive (which is a huge help). I think the way the timing worked, someone as far away as DC or Raleigh could have still made it to RVA for tickets when online failed - doesn't get more fair than that even if skewed toward locals.

 

As a local, I love it. I can stop by whenever I want to (and I'm 99% sure that most of the cans/bottles will carry over for a day or two after their actual release date), don't need to worry about tickets or planning far in advance, etc. Totally get why some folks prefer the old way, but I'm excited for it this year.

Also, the entire beer community in RVA is going to go broke as a result of this event. Veil is going to make a killing over this week.

 

I agree with everything you say 100% - more veil beer = good. I just wish they included an anniversary party (or presale allotments) like last year along with the festivities/releases.

 

Yeah I can agree with everything you and @dcc449 are saying. From a local standpoint, its hard to understand all the negative feedback on this, and I am seeing a lot on the BTV group, which I always assume is mostly local but maybe not. I also get that out-of-towners would like a more focused event since they'll have to travel.

 

Feel bad for VCU students into craft beer. They're probably taking out extra loans and shit with the current scene in Richmond. I know I would be.