Stone Collaborations 2014

I'm still glad I bought mine but just so you know Stone, a shit storm could be brewing about you making these bottles not nearly as limited as you promised.

 

In the end it does not really effect me because I am going to drink all mine, but this does seem like another miscalculation on their part. I think by now they would understand the people that they are selling to.

 

Did they promise they would be limited? I thought they said you could buy as much as you wanted and there was an option to buy 10 CASES! So, yeah, they were on sale for a limited time but in no way did I read that as these will be small bottle counts.

Note that people that buy in the second round do pay 10% more and lose out on the gift cards. If there is a shit storm it would be entitled whining IMHO.

 

The first two - Victory / Dogfish & Brewdogs - are probably the only 2 that aren't intriguing to me ... at all.

 

We've never been ones to create faux exclusivity. If a beer is limited, it's because that's all we could brew (the last edition of w00tstout 2.0 for example), or because logistics limit what we're able to execute at one time (thus the way the Stone Enjoy By IPAs are done).

In the case of the Berlin Collaborations, we have a lot of time to properly advance plan the execution of each beer. Recognizing that we will have the ability to make the beer, and that we've gotten 10-1 remarks from people in favor of bringing back ones we'd marked as "Sold Out," and that neither children OR puppy dogs will be harmed (as long as one of our collaborators doesn't want to put them in the kettle anyway), we decided to do this thing.

Recall also that we said from the beginning that we *might* bottle in 750mls as well, and that they would be sold for no less than $30 each. And we also said that we were selling in 10 case lots to wholesalers and retailers via the campaign. All this said that "exclusivity" was not one of the things we were selling. Instead, it was additional perks (which will no longer be present for the beers when they reappear) and a price that will be much lower than any future retail pricing structure.

BTW, now that I have your ears, I have a question that I'd like to get your perspectives on...

Some of our Collaborators want to buy some of the resulting bottles. It seems kinda uncool for us to make our Collaborators pay in advance for a beer that they're going to be helping us make! However, I didn't think about that (doh!) when we created the program, and I basically promised all you guys that the only way ANYONE could get the bottles at these prices would be to buy the beer-futures in advance via this IndieGoGo campaign.

So here's the question: I'd like to allow an exception for our Collaborators to buy cases of the collaboration beers without having to pay for them in advance like everyone else. Same price as everyone else though, but paid for when we send them the cases. Would that be cool for us to allow them to do that since, you know, they're helping to brew the beer and all?

Thanks for the thoughts on this! -Greg.

 

Agreed. Seems like the right thing to do.

 

More than reasonable...

 

I have two questions. Do wholesalers also have to pick these up from the brewery? And will the East coast brewery location be announced before the indiegogo campaign ends? Not being within driving distance is the only thing that would be preventing me from buying a bottle or two.

 

Greg,

First off thanks a lot for putting the effort into brewing these special collaboration beers and taking the opportunity to make the opening of the Berlin brewery even more special. Its also nice to see you on here!

I missed out on super special w00tstout so i really appreciate you guys giving a second chance on them.

I also think its fair to offer the brewers the ability to purchase the beers they make at the discounted price whenever you want them to pay. Shouldnt they be getting some of the bottles for their effort anyway without paying?

 

I'm glad you are offering all of them again, but my wallet will definitely be feeling it.

 

The beer that wholesalers buy will go on the same truck as one of their regular beer shipments.

The Eastern US decision and the IndieGoGo campaign are independent. It'd be nice to be able to announce while the campaign was still ongoing, but that's unlikely to happen as we expect the analysis to take a couple weeks more.

 

From the Stone Groundbreaking website.

Just how rare are these beers?

Pretty damn rare! The 1.5-liter bottles in this campaign will ONLY be sold by us during the crowd-participation campaign—from the time of announcement until the time they sell out or the campaign ends, whichever comes first.

 

Brew as much as you can, and definitely share with the collaborators.

Beer doesn't taste better just because no one else can get it.

Keep brewing and innovating!

 

Yes. Accurate. We are only selling the 1.5 Liter bottles during the campaign. The only possible exception is the one I proposed in my post above, in which we'd allow our Collaborators to purchase theirs at the time that they were shipped to them.

All told, even with allowing additional bottle sales, there will be FAR fewer bottles of these in the world than one of our normal special releases. (By "FAR fewer" that means about 1/8th - 1/10th, or less, than a normal special release volume from us.)

 

Personally I would think the collaborators would / should get a better deal than the general public. Words are always imprecise and I never would have assume that "anyone" applied to the people making the beer.

But that's just me.

 

I would have bought the three or four anyway even if you were going to make 100000 of each bottle. As always you guys keep prices relatively low and in my opinion are the reason that the San Diego beer scene is as great as it is. However this started out as a fundraising campaign at $50 a bottle and then was quickly changed into the new system that is still in place today. You guys had little thermometer looking thing on the website with a percentage sold that eventually exploded red when the bottles sold out. Are you saying that didn't have the expressed purpose to make people believe that they better buy fast or they would never have a chance to purchase these bottles unless it was on the secondary market? Screw it. I'm buying all 12 anyway and have my own 12 days of Christmas vertical December 2020.

 

Sounds like you changed your minds. Not against releasing them again, but comes off as a little disingenuous.