Hill Farmstead (2023)

I wouldn’t be surprised if more proxies than drivable people tried, so I get it from that perspective. I’m interested to see if it’s still selling out in 10 seconds next week - at 1pp for the duration and available for two weeks, it’s almost a test of how many crazies there are (myself included). Seems about 70 bottles day, so 5-600 total before lottery.

 

They’re using the same system that Cantillon uses for their online sales. It limits the number of people allowed in to purchase at a time. Helps to keep the servers from getting bogged down and crashing. So because of that, it’ll take a little longer to sell out. How long just depends on how many bottles they release.

 

Hello everyone:


As highlighted in this thread, Toast is not the optimal platform and option for releasing beers like Ann with the demand and volume of customer interest we have seen each day this week. As we continue to evolve and refine the way we release beers of this limited nature to move toward a platform better suited, we are working with our partners in Craftpeak to offer this voucher sale on Saturday 1/21.

In working through the necessary steps toward envisioning the way that we will fulfill and redeem each voucher, the fact that the ability for secondary market activity to become a more widespread issue with the involvement of the added layer of a proxy has led to the decision to not offer proxies in this initial voucher sale. The added complexity of proxies, and our desire to minimize risk and reduce the possibility of errors is another reason why we made the change. This decision is also based on the desire to be as fair and equitable as possible, while streamlining the redemption and pick-up process.

Thanks for your understanding and support.

Mike

 

Makes a lot of sense - and thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful post after a long day of work.

FWIW on Toast, I kinda like it now it just takes some getting used to.

 

I hear you, but given that people travel from all over the world (the dude was from Ohio), western mass is fairly local.

that said, bro, ya’ll still grown men hyping a beer beyond belief, objectively.

There have been professional studies done on wine tasters during competitions, over 4 years. With placebo, they were right about 10% of the time. Point being, at a certain point, you’re not buying taste, you’re buying hype.

 

A well made saison is a thing of beauty. And how many world class saison producers are out there? I can say with absolute certainty as to my personal preferences that there no more than 5 breweries whose saisons are consistently worth a shit, and yeah, they're not all hard to get. Hell most of their products are cheap af and require minimal effort to acquire, but the catch is that they're all very regional. So sometimes their most sought after stuff requires a little more investment, be it time, money, etc.

I absolutely get the idea that hype and rarity drives ratings to a degree, I do my best to objectively rate and push back against undeserved hype. But this isn't Ann's first rodeo. And comparing wine and beer in this regard is apples to footballs. The sample size, volume, accessibility, process, ingredients are all so drastically different, there's just not the same level of world class saison producers like there are wine.

I guess I just don't understand your entire approach to this. You act like you don't have fomo, but then say you're just frustrated "in not being able to acquire a beer I want to drink," but that it's not worth the drive, even though everyone is absolutely guaranteed to get a pour for at least a couple weeks. It ultimately sounds to me what you're actually disappointed by is not being able to easily score a bottle to resell for a couple thousand dollars. If so, you're part of the problem. If I was that into trying something and lived three hours away it'd be a no brainer to hop in my car and go. I do it pretty much every month in Ohio, and that's just for lagers.

 

Also, congrats Sean on finding the last 3 females in New England to work for HF. That’s more impressive than having people pay 1500$ for a bottle

A well made saison is a thing of beauty, that’s your best argument?

 

I might have to stick around to see who post the longest argument

 

Well that was a surprising turn.

It's clear now that it really wouldn't be productive to discuss anything further with you.

 

You know what they say about people who argue on the internet..

I'll be visiting at the end of the month. Last time I was at Hill was May 2019, so curious to know what, if anything, has changed since. Seems like you order retail pickup that morning before coming in which is new. But otherwise you can go into the tasting room and taste through different beers- are they still strictly enforcing a 2 drink maximum (as they were the last few times I went pre-pandemic)?

 

You can only have two drinks in front of you at any given time, but you can get as many pours as you’d like. Ann pours are only 1pp and they will cut you off if you appear intoxicated, but other than that that you can drink quite a bit.

 

Only thing I'd say is that if you can get there earlier in the day, it would be worth it because some on-site beers will sell out. I got there yesterday at ~2:30pm and Birth of Tragedy was sold out and Juicy (I think) as well. Ann is being served all day but if you're looking to try a bunch of stuff, getting there earlier is best.

 

I read the lotto post, but I'm not sure if it was outright explained. Are people able to buy multiple tickets? I wouldn't mind throwing $5 at a good cause and possibly plan a future trip to Hill, but are people able to stack the odds in their favor?

 

Believe it's 1 per person based on their answer to someone asking that on Instagram. Here's the link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnX0YUrLHQb/?hl=en

 

the no proxy service eliminates people spoofing the lottery with several "people". Its pretty easy to buy a bunch of tickets and then just proxy a bottle if one of them hits- hell you just pick it up yourself. No proxy is definitely the fairest way to release a limited beer like this, but since the 5 bucks goes to charities, I say let people buy as many tickets and they want/can. After all, we are talking about a 100 dollar bottle of beer. It may be an amazing bottle of beer, but it is not life saving medicine for a child in need. It is definitely awesome that they are holding bottles for on site visits- that shows a commitment to letting lots of people get a taste.

 

I have no idea how many female employees Hill Farmstead has, but I will agree that it seems like everyone pretty quickly moved on from the 2021 allegations, without (any?) follow-up on Shaun Hill's initial (non-apology) statement. As I previously brought up in another thread, I would guess this probably has something to do with the excellent quality of beer they produce, and therefore people willing to give more leeway compared to other brewers that have gained more toxic reputations.

 

100% agree, no repercussions from what any of us can tell. As intelligent high IQ BA members we can clearly see this behavior replicated in an array of industries (ex: I’m posting this on an iPhone ). Also lol hype honey saison. For a long time I thought Ann was some barrel aged coffee chocolate stout with water sourced from a prehistoric cave in the NEK.

 

HF beers average 4.3. Which makes him “quirky”.

 

Yes sometimes there is only so much you can do as a consumer, but a lot easier to "vote with your dollars" with breweries when there are almost 10,000 of them in the US, instead of just a handful of global electronics manufacturers.

It's pretty prevalent with athletes, musicians, authors, artists, actors, etc. so I guess add brewer to the list where folks are probably willing to "separate the art from the artist". However buying beer is a lot more direct in putting money in the the pocket of the guy you think is a creep or a jerk, compared to listening to a song or watching a sporting event on TV.