Pittsburgh - New Beers & Local Breweries

Any of you cool kids at BG able to get me a growler of Albatross?

 

The GNVP cupcake was off the chain
The CCCBBVD was even better
And the Quadfather Cheesecake was off the rails

The rest were insanely good too

Also I saw some guy tell @tommyguz wife that the cupcakes were so good he "almost had an orgasm"...

 

I went to Homestead with a two friends. I went last year too. I remember last year being a lot more orderly and the beers sticking around a lot longer. I was able to get one of everything last year. This year, we were in line at about a quarter after 11. By the time we got inside and someone waited on us, we were only able to get the CCCBBVD and the Apple Brady Grand Met. The problem, IMO, was the lack or organization once inside. There weren't really lines. It was confusing and left to the aggressors (which I am not). People were just jumping the bar. I don't mean that as a complaint, rather an observation. Clear lines inside at the bar would have made my experience better.

Both beers I had were fantastic and I was thankful to have had them.

 

Really? As for the cupcakes they were out at the end of the bar for all to enjoy, I even got the employee ones for people who asked that missed them. Which not to mention my wife and I make out of pocket for all to enjoy and ingredients for them were well over $200 to add to this great event voodoo put together.

Your complaining seems to be the opposite of 99% of everyone who attended this event at both places. The staff was amazing, the beers were great, the food insane. You just sound like a complainer

 

Same here. Heard things were kicked so I'm going another day to claim my beer treasure

 

Didn't get to formally meet you, but @Stigs and @Tedwarhc pointed you out. Thought you were very blue sweatshirty.

 

Srs. Was like eleven minutes in Homestead? Only got to try it because @Tedwarhc is generous, and I was in line at 10:10.

 

Nice seeing @Tedwarhc and @zhoss24 (the latter at Fat Heads afterward) and meeting @randylangford , @chekyo4 and @Stigs (I forget anyone?). Displacing meeting someone you've only talked to online--like reading a book that becomes a movie and being surprised at who was cast to play the roles. Hope to be kid free next time, so I can drink more and hang out longer, meet/see more BAers. Would've like to have been able to see @kbuzz and @Dogleg and met more of you, but couldn't stick around longer; next time.

Edit: and briefly saw @Beerman6686 , nice seeing you as well.

 

What a blast today was! voodoo thank you and understand that every self respectful beer guy/gal enjoyed themselves today and will remember this for years to come! keep up the quality work and your loyal patrons will continue to pursue what they want to drink!!

 

Bye Felicia.

 

What took you guys so long on glasses. They sold out before BM in meadville

 

Great event. Great Beer. Great People. Thanks Voodoo!

 

Great event. Beers were great! CCBBVD was really nice and the wine notes on the Quadfather were also great! BBQ pulled pork sandwich was killer. Great job by Voodoo and nice seeing everyone enjoying great beer and the experience!

 

Seems like a good suggestion. In practice i think it's a lot harder to police/maintain than you might hope, but some effort could have been made for this. It at least would've made sure none of the first 30-50 or so people missed out on BM (though I assume if any of them had, we would've heard about it by now).
As to last year being more orderly, that was to be expected. Even reading these forums beforehand, people were speculating about the crowds that would be attracted by having BM on tap. Only way Voodoo can really control that is by making beers that fewer people are excited for.

 

That's what I was going for!

 

Haha, fair.

 

I'm glad most people had such a good time at the release, but I'm not a fan of all the piling on @oldmetalguy is getting. People shouldn't be berated into not giving dissenting opinions. I mean, it's a forum, so I guess that's kinda the deal, but still.

We made a separate line for allotments (and allowed for allotment pickup at your leisure for the coming weeks) to keep that from slowing down bar service, but when there are several hundred customers and significantly fewer bartenders, it's tough to accommodate everyone in a swift and orderly fashion. It sounded from your description like you were at meadville, but I assume they had a pretty similar setup and crowd to ours at homestead.

Definitely not saying there's no room to improve though, and I for one am definitely interested in hearing any suggestions.

Not trying to trivialize your experience, but from previous posts it sounds like you've just been getting into the world of craft beer - waiting in a huge line for an hour+ to get into an insanely packed bar/brewery/field/industrial park and drink extremely limited beer is a definite rite of passage in the craft beer world. It's not a part of craft beer you have to be excited about or even like, but it would be a little sad to never have gotten that experience at all.

 

Got in line a little after ten and was about 60ish back. Once inside, agree that others behind me were able to navigate the scrum more efficiently to order before I could, but wasn't a big deal...though BM did kick juuust before I was able to attract the attention of a tender. Also agree that it is probably not feasible to police without severely slowing the process--outside of doing something like tickets for the first 75 people, which I think would be unpopular/annoying. Felt Homestead was generally well run yesterday and had a bunch of fun; did get a glass and a shirt. Super impressed by the ninja way the allotments were announced, which benefits locals. Not a complaint just an observation (no regrets; couldn't have arrived earlier myself yesterday) and next time, I'll just plan to get there a bit earlier day of.

 

@london1o1 A suggestion that I would have that is also the opinion of a good amount of others that I have talked to is to maybe limit pours to 4-5 ounces a person, and have a set limit on how much a person can buy of a certain beer at once. That way people aren't getting trashed, and more people can buy the beer that they waited in line for.

I would probably feel the same way even if I didn't get shut out of BM by just a few people, but I think it's when multiple people are walking away with 4 pours of a beer at once that it gets to be too much. I don't think a lot of people would disagree when saying that beers of such small quantity would be perfectly okay being reduced to 1 per person per trip to the bar, but maybe I'm completely wrong.

Not trying to complain either, because I had a great time yesterday. I just feel that there are a few ways to get the beer in more hands of the people that waited in line for over an hour.

 

Besides you assholes drinking nearly everything before I got there, it was a great time. Picking up of allotments could not have been smoother; great idea to get the boxes away from the bar area.

Every worker I spoke to between 3-4 ish was thoroughly exhausted. They obviously worked their asses off and I appreciate everything @voodoobrewery did to make this release a fun and relatively smooth event.