Toppling Goliath Brewery appreciation thread...

All that is fair, sort of, but if you're looking to do online ticket sales, there are better options (or at least a better option) than Brown Paper, and not only is it fairly well known, we're only a few weeks away from the epic shitshow of the Duck Duck Gooze release. This isn't the end of the world or anything, but it doesn't take long to do a quick Google search of ticket options and investigate which one is best and then select the best option. I get it, they have more important things to do, I wasn't trying for tickets either way (I'm gone that weekend) so I have no stake in the game, but it's completely unnecessary to choose a ticketing option that will crash like this.

Next time, choose Eventbrite.

 

Exactly, they crash. Stop using them! There a lot of examples of well run releases so why choose to go down the road that leads to a shit show. I'm guessing the BG lottery will go off without a hitch. I realize that if they did an open lottery like that they would probably have tens of thousands of entries but it would still be 'fair'. No they won't loose a significant amount of customers but knowingly creating a headache for people that regularly support them and just want a reasonable chance at their special release and then being a bit smug about it doesn't seem like the best long term plan.

 

They won't collect $50k. I've already seen a few people with tickets say they're not sure if they can even go. Some of them are 100s of miles away. It will be interesting to see how many actually show up.

Its seems to me that TG doesn't have the craft beernerd knowledge that us enthusiasts have. They don't read every BA post, or nor check every MBC listing or follow FB beer groups. BPT was a bad choice from the beginning and we all knew it. It quickly turned into a lottery and a lot of local and loyal TG fans who rarely missed releases are now missing out. Maybe they need to hire a strategist.. or someone that allows this hobby to consume their life...

I agree with announcing the bottle count and releasing it on certain days. Similar to how NG does releases. This should be a lot easier when the new brewery location opens up. Or maybe just have golden tickets hidden in select FL cans

 

I'd imagine at least 400 of the 500 show up, at a minimum.

This is very true. I think Clark understands the game a fair bit (hype releases and whatnot) but obviously he has other shit to do as well. The rest of the people that I've talked to from the brewery are always in awe at the length that beer nerds will go to to get the beer. They understand muling and sales and stuff, but I don't think they fully understand that people will walk over to Casey's or up to Luther and offer random people money to mule.

I agree that they should hire the two of us to tag team releases. VP of hype and associate VP of hype. We could have our own twitter handle with just pictures of whalez and barrels and vague comments about faroff releases.

I don't think with 1000 bottles total they can really do that, right? I mean if they said we're releasing 1000 bottles at 2pp on 10/8 there would be people in line on 10/5 and I don't think that's an exaggeration. NG can do that because their releases have 1/10th of the hype and 10x the amount of bottles.

 

IMO sell tickets out of the taproom like deGarde did for their 3rd anniversary.

 

I've seen this a lot about locals being left out. I'm not a local by any means, but I do support TG from the TC. I feel this was as much a "lottery" as anything. Yes it was a mess and didn't go well.
If it did go smooth and sell out in 90 seconds and locals didn't get any, would that be any better?
I'm just not sure how locals and loyal fans play in the game for releases. Any thoughts? I agree, loyal fans should be rewarded, but all of them can't be and how do they do that?

Personally, Surly BA Darkness was a truck chase, minus 1 at Darkness days. Mug club would be the only "loyal" program, but I know they are not all locals.
I suppose they could bring a few cases to the taproom, but again, you'd only make those random people that were there happy and we'd hear about the others that were left out.

 

It depends what you mean by better.

If you're going to run an online sale, there's no reason NOT to choose an option that will handle the traffic load so that it goes quickly. People will still complain, but at least you won't be wasting people's time (and adding to your complaints).

Ultimately until production comes close to demand there is no perfect option, but that doesn't mean that whatever option you choose there aren't clear examples at this point of what to do, and what not to.

 

I was referring to locals and loyals being happy.
If the website went smooth, would locals still be upset they were shutout or was it a general, "locals and loyals should get a different option"?

 

Here is my two cents, when they announced at 1pm have a site to go to and submit your name once. At 4:30 entry is closed. Select 500 random names send out emails. No site crashing, no submitting email wrong. Just a simple luck of the draw lottery.

 

They also have the taproom open, and last year they had bottle of Sosus for sale to-go. I think they will easily make up for the people that don't show up.

 

Sadly I won't actually be doing this as I cannot find another one this year. Will probably grab something like dragontrax or bt reserve

 

No matter how they do it in the future there will be butt hurt people. Is there a perfect way of doing it? Doubtful. When there is 500 tickets to something thousands of people want there will be feelings hurt no matter what route they go.

 

Clearly the most equitable way is to rotate the release methods (unannounced taproom release, mug club, email lottery, online ticket sales, etc). This way a different subset of customers (granted there will be overlap) will get pi$$ed off each time.

 

This is an excellent idea. I like how you think

That's true, which is why the new brewery should allow for more production and hopefully more area to stand in line.

 

Hello! Man, hopefully I run into you! Wouldn't mind sharing some tasty things!

 

Do you know what the cost of doing business with those other options are? I have no clue about them, but perhaps they aren't as good of an option from TG's business perspective. If BPT was more financially feasible (and had other business impacts), then why not? They can run it again next time and have zero problem selling out...and again...and again. If all these people complaining (not saying you, just the general population of complainers) are still going to try for it again in the future, then they're not really having any impact. If people really don't like it, don't try for the next release.

 

I think this idea would be so cool with a slight twist! What if they took a set number of bottles (say 100) and designated them to be given away in this fashion. Then gave away the rest via lottery, first 500, etc. They could have 100 codes put on the bottle caps of 100 random bombers throughout the year, and people who purchased those would have the opportunity to buy MD or whatever whale they're releasing. Granted everyone who got lucky may not want to buy it and they may turn into bargaining chips, but who cares it'd still be fun for people. Could be a fun way to get people interested and give people who support them a chance at the whales. Plus they could hype it up on social media and be like, "Hey this batch of KS, Sosus, etc has 4 MD caps in it." Would be good for business and a fun thing for customers.

 

I'm more for loyal than local. It's difficult spending a lot of money on TG bombers and Florida cans. Then travelling to the taproom, buying pints and growlers only to find out that you can't buy they're most highly sought after brews. There's no easy way of keeping existing customers happy while gaining new customers.

Side Project\Perennial is ahead of TG on a lot of these fronts. They've already had issues with BPT and learned from that. They're releases are much smoother

IMO, Mug club then lottery and/or onsite consumption for the remaining bottles.

 

Was there any word on if Mug Club was getting the option for a bottle, similar to the way they did it last year?

 

The online tickets sucked because it gave you a glimpse of hope, but it was actually entirely fair because there was no way to affect the outcome personally. You had to get lucky. I sat there for 45 mins refreshing. I had even slowed down near the end and when people were saying they were sold out but it didn't make sense because I hadn't seen a single person with a valid claim to have gotten them at that point so I figured they were all locked up in carts. Being patient worked and now I'm one of the lucky ones who get to try a new beer out. I would say it may have been fair to release 100 tickets to locals only at the brewery. Require something like an Iowa lisence to be able to purchase one and the rest going online like they did. Just like somebody else had said, if it went smoothly with no web crashes they'd literally have been gone in a minute flat.