Bottle Logic's Fundamental Observation

I was pretty set on going today but decided this afternoon I wasn't going to bother. Leaving Hollywood around 2:15, I figured it would take me at least 1.5 hours to get there and then I would have to hang around for awhile if I didn't want to sit in traffic for another two hours coming back. I'm fine with them handling the release however they want to handle the release. My preference would certainly be for a BPT release next time. But you folks against a BPT release are absolutely right. If you REALLY wanted this beer, you made sure that you got there early enough. But I hate that the next time they release something (if they don't do BPT or don't have a lot more to sell), people will likely be lined up starting at noon or earlier. That's the sort of thing that BPT eliminates.

 

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the release and I dont have a problem with the fact that I didn't get bottles. I just think BPT is a much better alternative and have a hard time seeing how anyone would disagree for a reason that isn't "I have go deal with more competition."

That said, I didn't want the beer enough to cancel all of my meetings and leave work at 2pm on a Tuesday. I dont think I should have to, which is why I'm giving feedback.

 

how many shelf mid west beers are these going for?

 

LOL, people trying to trade for Vanilla Rye.

 

I was quite happy with how things went today. I got there about 5 minutes to 4:00 pm, got a parking spot super close, with about 80-100 people in either line in front of me. 45-ish minutes later I had my beers, sat at the bar, and had a few drinks. I noticed probably around 70-80% of customers bought and left without even trying any from the tap.

They had pre-existing commitments, so you can't get mad at them for not selling bottles that have already sold for local distro. That being said I spoke with one of the guys who works there who said the staff even gave back the few bottles they were allowed to purchase so more customers could purchase bottles, which seems to me like they were bending over backwards to make as many people happy as possible.

 

Be interesting to see what gets done. I have a hard time imagining it going 1:1 with VR or Prop kr 2:1 with stuff like Assassin.

 

If you don't start the bar high, you will never know where it will settle!

 

Any hints as to which retailers it was distributed too?

 

Great chatting with you Steve! Really looking forward to the AZ Wilderness collab release ... and thanks for putting up with my good natured ribbing / input about BPT. CHEERS!

 

Yea we decided to give up some employee bottles due to the demand.

As for retailers I will keep you guys updated, I should have some sort of a list for you guys tomorrow.

 

move the line over to the liquor stores!!

 

What I noticed from this release is even though there was a bottle limit of 6, most instagram photos showing people boasting their 12-18 bottles. Who knows though, maybe they are the exception... maybe it's just the people who get that many bottles are more prone to boast about it on IG...

 

The ft 4 x heady topper iso 2 x FO gave me a good chuckle this morning...

 

Thank god there aren't more people like you on this site. You are the antonym of an advocate.

 

Good lord, I hate beer.

 

if it's that good, why would they? I was hoping to grab a bottle to do a side-by-side comparison.

 

I was 10 ppl away before they sold out. While I think BPT is a nice option, I think Bottle Logic had one of the worst organized releases I've seen in a while. It was chaotic. People who got there early should at least admit:

- There were two lines and no one knew if bottles were sold at each.
- The brewery should never speculate and tell people in line they should be okay.
- The brewery should have started handing out tickets.
- They already use mobile payment systems via iPad. They could have gone down the line and checked people out. It would have secured people who stood in line and not the cutters.
- it is common practice to cut the allocation as the inventory ran low. I applaud the 6 limit, but as they saw 100+ people in line and had 10-20 cases left, it would have been fair to cut to 3-4. This would also tell people they were running low.
- Pours were only inside, when they have done pours from the warehouse. The line was ridiculous to even try it.

I want to note that they did a nice job of posting on social media and in the tap room that bottles were sold out. Some places have to have customers do it for them on the FB page. I'm trying to give constructive feedback here. As a brewery gets bigger and more known, they need to do disaster planning ahead of time and not after they've pissed off customers. Mo' Money, Mo' Problems, right? Bruery 3rd Anniversary and Huna Day '14 (or was it '13?) are some examples. I love going here, and thought the beer was amazing. Maybe it should go 1:1 so we can finally get pry those Chicago beers from the clouds.

I congratulate Bottle Logic on creating a fantastic beer and look forward to Darkstar November, but if you are as appreciative of your customers (as you stated on the microphone when it sold out), make sure you take care of them at releases like this.

 

It's almost impossible to believe, given that they're on BA relatively often, that they don't know best practices for bottle releases at this point. I'm surprised people aren't more pissed off than they are, giving BL way more benefit of the doubt than they deserve.

 

If I was x many people from the front of the line when they sold out I would be heinie-hurt too. Doubtless.

 

Until brewers do something to control line-cutters, releases like this will always be a cluster-f. That's why I didn't even attempt it yesterday.