Stone to Open Production Brewery and Destination Restaurant in Berlin

Discussion in 'Beer News' started by Keene, Jul 19, 2014.

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  1. moshea

    moshea Initiate (0) Jul 16, 2007 Michigan

    50 bucks for a bottle and a gift card is a decent enough idea. $30.00 plus $11.00 for shipping a t-shirt is silly.
    Having a rich guy beg the public for money to get even richer is even sillier.
     
    kelvarnsen, wesbray and RblWthACoz like this.
  2. spartan1979

    spartan1979 Pundit (946) Dec 29, 2005 Missouri

    I know Stone was available in Brussels in 2010. We saw it in the Delirium Tremens Bar. It wasn't available in St. Louis at the time, yet I could buy it in Europe. I didn't, though.
     
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  3. herrburgess

    herrburgess Grand Pooh-Bah (3,053) Nov 4, 2009 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Every Stone beer I have ever drunk has given me a near immediate headache. Yet another thing to worry about with the German drinking public. I can already hear the cries of "Kopfschmerzen Bier" :wink:
     
  4. JuniperJesus

    JuniperJesus Zealot (741) Feb 26, 2011 Illinois

    For $30,000:
    "Come to San Diego and we'll put you up in CEO Greg Koch's downtown loft for the weekend. Then Team Stone will take you out. And then "Dr." Bill Sysak and our executive chef will prepare a private rare beer dinner and master pairing. PLUS you'll also get one bottle of every collaboration that we produce as well as a T-shirt, glass and signed thank-you from our co-founders, Greg Koch and Steve Wagner. Travel not included."

    In other words:

    "For $30,000 of your hard-earned money you get to pay your own airfare to expensive San Diego to sleep on the couch of one of craft beer's richest men. His executive chef will prepare a private dinner complete with rarely-liked beers like Crime and Punishment, and a TV tray placed in front of Koch's couch, which suspiciously cost more than your donation. Dr. Bill will be on hand to occasionally check your anus, prostate, and rectum to see if you've been fucked enough. PLUS you'll get everything everyone else got for contributing much less!"
     
    sdpaul, Pythonhgr, Loganyoung and 6 others like this.
  5. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,181) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Boy, I can't even take a guess at how many gallons of Stone beer I have drunk over the years. Not once did I get a headache. The only real physiological reaction I had was a HUGE grin from drinking tasty beer.

    Cheers!
     
    boddhitree likes this.
  6. herrburgess

    herrburgess Grand Pooh-Bah (3,053) Nov 4, 2009 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Never said it wasn't tasty. Stone make some excellent beers for sure. Not sure why I now get headaches from them. But for Germans, if a beer ever produces even the slightest headache symptoms, the drinker will likely not only swear off of it for life, but warn everyone who will listen to avoid those beers like the plague. Again, Germany is a weird place. These examples don't even scratch the surface really. Ever heard of Erdstrahlen and how they can be blocked by installing cork floors or sleeping under a special (500 EUR) blanket? :astonished:
     
  7. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,181) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society

    @Padraig recently posted in the 'other' thread: "Enjoy By is being released to the UK market this week (via Bewdog) so it'll be interesting to see how much take up there."

    Makes me wonder if there will be more (continuing) cooperation between Stone and BrewDog from a Marketing & Sales perspective once the Stone Berlin brewery opens? Seems like there could be some synergy (vs. competition) there?

    Cheers!
     
  8. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,206) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Society

    I'm curious if this is mainly just a gateway to other countries (like the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium) and that the Berlin location is just centric. They might not care about the German market as much, although Berlin is probably as good of a place as any for what Stone does.

    Personally, I like about 1/2 the beers that Stone makes. I think their normal IPA is one of my favorites, and they were one of the first I can recall that didn't focus on caramel malts. The Ruination anniversary is phenomenal and I'd put it up there with with the hype train hoppy beers. While sometimes forgotten, their RIS might be the best around and it's a steal at $6-7.
     
    drtth, TongoRad and einhorn like this.
  9. thekidsarealright1

    thekidsarealright1 Initiate (0) Jan 6, 2014 California

    cool move, I dig it. If anyone can pull it off, its Stone. Sourcing ingredients to keep the California flavor alive will be a nice nutshell to crack but they'll get it. When's the hotel coming?
     
    Joshmistake likes this.
  10. belvedere86

    belvedere86 Maven (1,440) Apr 1, 2013 Belgium
    Trader

    I only care for the beer and stone best by is one of the best IPA's I've had so far. Stone espresso stout is also great.
    No one says you have to donate. But brewers seem to know that there are a lot of idiots who pay a lot of cash when they see the word "rare". Same with cantillon: you had to be a season ticketholder of a Belgian soccerteam that plays in second divsion to be able to buy a big bottle of St. Gilloise and I saw quite a bunch of americans asking Jean where they could buy a season ticket lol. Im sure in the end brewers just laugh with these kind of idiots/hipsters/whatever.

    But I like that fact that more american craft beer seems to become available on the european market!
     
    Joshmistake likes this.
  11. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,181) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah Society

  12. herrburgess

    herrburgess Grand Pooh-Bah (3,053) Nov 4, 2009 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I can say that had these fresh U.S. IPAs been available during the time I lived there, I probably would have splurged on 1-2 every other week or so -- and probably when visiting a place like Cafe Abseits (which is out by the (soon-to-be-closed) U.S. Army base). That was about the cycle of my C-hop cravings.
     
  13. MattRiggs

    MattRiggs Crusader (417) Dec 1, 2012 Illinois

    I re-watched the Brewing TV episode featuring Stone this morning. It was filmed 3 years ago, but there was quite a bit of talk about the European brewery idea back then. Berlin was even mentioned. Here's the link:



    I'm sure that they'll do fine in Berlin. I would guess that their "farm to table" restaurant alone will bring in enough money to finance the whole operation. Relatively speaking, a 70 BBL brewhouse isn't able to produce too much beer. Given the size of the European beer market, they could sell that much beer without even trying. I think the real question is regarding the impact they will have specifically in the German beer market. Is a 70 BBL brewhouse big enough to demonstrate enough market traction that will cause mainstream German brewers to pay attention to the new world beer styles? Maybe not. I think they'll need to go through a phase 2 expansion model (like they did in SoCal) before the average German brewer really starts to notice/change.
     
  14. Padraig

    Padraig Crusader (490) Jan 14, 2013 New York
    Trader

    It'll be interesting to see how much impact Stone, Green Flash and all the others have. My personal feeling is that they're at least three years too late, certainly in the UK and Scandinavian countries. For the most part their beers aren't any better than plenty of the now well established 'new skool' local craft brewers.

    We might need a good old fashioned price war.
     
  15. dgilks

    dgilks Initiate (0) Jul 14, 2008 Australia

    I'm about to move to Berlin so this makes me very happy.
     
  16. Crusader

    Crusader Pooh-Bah (1,651) Feb 4, 2011 Sweden
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Brewdog is currently selling three of Stone's beers via their online shop (all of which are currently out of stock), and I would imagine that this arrangement would continue and/or expand as Stone's Berlin brewery starts producing beer. I'd also imagine that Stone beers would be sold via Brewdog's own bars, of which there are several in the UK and two in Sweden. Of course the volumes sold in Sweden will be miniscule compared to the US (and compared to the UK too I bet). The largest Swedish craft brewery sold around 8500 US barrels of beer in the government monopoly stores last year, the next largest sold about 4200 barrels. Brewdog's own Punk IPA sold around 1911 barrels in 2012 (I don't have the number for last year). The on-premise sales will add some barrels to these figures, but not a whole lot more. If Stone manages to win some monopoly tenders for some of their regular offerings I guess one could forsee sales reaching a couple of thousand barrels here in Sweden within a few years.

    Some Stone beers have been sold via the monopoly in the past as "limited release" bombers going for 11-13 USD each and they've probably been able to sell the small volumes that this entailed, but if they are going to sell more than a few hundred barrels they will need go for smaller formats (and more reasonble pricing).
     
  17. herrburgess

    herrburgess Grand Pooh-Bah (3,053) Nov 4, 2009 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Did not realize it is only a 70 BBL brewhouse to start. I guess the "revolution" is planning on gauging public interest first before it really gets going.... :wink:
     
  18. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,206) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Society

    The more I learn about this the more I think it's just a geographic thing more than them trying to truly make a big impact in Germany. I think they'll certainly be successful and make money (especially in Berlin), but I think this is more of a centralized home base for markets like Scandinavia, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, etc.
     
    Gutes_Bier likes this.
  19. herrburgess

    herrburgess Grand Pooh-Bah (3,053) Nov 4, 2009 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Could be. But as has been pointed out elsewhere, they are going to be using a relatively small brewing setup -- 70BBL -- at their facility. I'm not sure that's big enough to service what is obviously intended to be a destination brewpub and gardens *and* serve the rest of a (very crowded) European market. Interesting to follow this as it develops....
     
  20. ASTMONATE

    ASTMONATE Initiate (0) Apr 23, 2014 Illinois

    I drink the shit out of Stone but this announcement means absolutely nothing to me. Unless of course, by "East of the Mississippi" they mean St. Louis or Nashville.
     
    ohiobeer29 likes this.
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