Floodland Brewing

As the immediately foregoing entries prove once again, the Northwest Forum, as defined by the preponderance of people who actively post on it, is a veritable Shangri-la of Beer Enlightenment. Even if some portion of our local scene, beyond its virtual walls, has deteriorated and gone, in more ways than I'd care to admit, to shit, the ethos and perspective of this small community is endlessly refreshing, and something of a comfort in a harsh world. I wish it were representative of more than it is, but that is not to diminish its legitimate status as a beacon in the night, or my gratitude for the meaningful solace it does provide. Thanks (again), fellas...

Also, @paysse, my apologies for failing to include the most important part of my post last night: congratulations and godspeed! Most of us can only imagine, and dimly, how humbling and gratifying yesterday morning must have been for you. But my sense, from those who know you better and what I've read, is that you deserved all of it; and that this is merely the beginning of a grand and auspicious adventure for you. That's a source of solace and of hope, too. For everyone. Cheers...

 

What?

 

Somehow, I had hoped that finally meeting a month ago would help us to understand each other better. Perhaps that was overly optimistic?

In simpler terms, I just found it reassuring that the good people of this forum stepped up to express these virtuous sentiments concerning how they viewed the beer involved in this membership, and what they intended to do with it. This mindset and behavior tends to be the only one that prevails, publicly, in this particular corner of BA, and I meant to recognize and applaud it in what I wrote. Because it is definitely not a given, and it is far from the only thing you see if you look at other parts of the beer community--online or off, here or elsewhere.

It is also not the sort of thing which is common enough, period, regardless of context. And I've personally been feeling especially down about the world lately and was just looking for something, however trivial, to be positive about, and to sing its praises in my own idiosyncratic fashion on a Saturday night. Hope that was okay, old-timer...

 

As the poet philosopher William Corgan once penned, "die world ist ein vampire."

Jah bless. Sanctify. Remember the poor.

 

Lolz

 

Some day I will drink beers with this gent. I look forward to the opportunity.

 

Earlier you said, in response to some other good people here, that we really get you. That feeling is now mutual for me.

Because of the way the world is, there is no venue so slight that calibrated mindfulness of the real misery perpetually beyond it cannot, and should not, have a place from time to time. Compassion is, or ought to be, more than a hobby.

And you, sir, are proving an awfully easy guy to root for...

 

While I hear you, isn't it a bit harsh to describe our releases as a crap show? And, yes, Adam is doing something special and is more than worth the hype...the barrel and blending skills are strong with this one.

 

All due respect (blather, blather, blather), and acknowledging that you have taken steps to improve the processes, but (IIRC) it was one of your releases where your grain delivery truck had issues parking, because a line went around your block. On a Saturday. Morning.

I've said repeatedly that breweries are in a no-win situation, and you seem to be very proactive in trying to make things better, but, yeah, some of your releases have been the textbook definition of "shitshow".

"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it".

BTW, I fully expect to see you in Bham for the BA bottleshare, the Saturday before Thanksgiving (November 18th). Don't have the room locked in yet, but, soon.

 

Any time people start lining up many hours (5am anyone?!) ahead of time for 1pp-limit bottles of beer, I'd say that meets the textbook definition of a shitshow. Lines around the block and drunken line sharing only double-down on this. Really looking forward to Oakworks in no small part because of my growing distaste for dealing w/ said shitshows. I have far better, and more meaningful things to spend my time on.

 

(And no offense to @Texwild and other brewers at Fremont; you folks brew some of the best barrel-aged beers I've ever tasted. I just can't deal w/ all the #newmoney #hypeboi nonsense anymore, much to my chagrin... e.g., I'd love to stop by and grab a bottle of each of the new B2Ks, but I simply cannot rationally justify standing alongside many mules for hours for a mere two bottles, however delicious I'm confident those bottles will be.)

 

I plan to stop by after at least the first wave of the line has gone through. No doubt, by that time some folks will be grabbing their second or third allotment (times the number of mules). Still, I hope to procure a bottle without needing deal with too much hassle. Perhaps the peated is gone by then, but I still have my hidden truth anyway.

 

also, isn't this the floodland thread?

 

For Floodland the membership makes perfect sense, an actual beer release for 200 bottles would be kind of nonsensical, whereas for beers with more product it makes more sense to do a normal release or a mix of the 2.

The thing about memberships though is it's sort of a binary proposition; you are either in or out. And being "out" might just be because you were away from your email for an hour or 2 during a sign-up mad rush (or lose out on a lottery system.) If "out" in this case, that's 10 beers you won't have access to, while members have easy access to all 10.

With actual beer releases it's up to you to pick and choose how much effort to put into it, and it spreads the wealth a little more.

My wife and I go sit in camping chairs for a couple of hours and sip coffee and listen to music and/or shoot the shit. We then get beer we want, grab some on draft, and go about our Saturday. We'd probably be at home doing about the same thing anyways.

Are you off curing cancer on your average Saturday morning or something?

It can definitely try my patience a bit, but I just put headphones on and TRY to ignore the jackassery going on (and don't participate it in personally.)

 

I do agree with you, this is the one part of bottle clubs that I dislike. I do hope those on the wait list get offered new membership positions in some sort of order, rather than send out an email to everyone that joins the wait list between now and next year and then there's another massive email scramble. It's a bit harder logistically, but I much prefer this because interested parties can simply wait it out.

The beer world seems unique in that it doesn't have enough product the fill the demand with memberships. Wine is completely different, where the end goal is to sell more memberships making it less of an "exclusive" club. Doesn't The Bruery offer multiple tiers of memberships? Maybe there is some sort of middle ground.

 

My sincerest apologies for diverting any of the utterly deserved attention from Adam and Floodland, but I distinctly remembered this, too, from the "live-blogging" of the infamous 2016 Rusty release. It seemed to me entirely worth resurrecting, and especially because it only required 30 seconds of research.

The best parts, if you look at the picture below, are the helplessly bemused look on the face of the truck driver, Jordan White (of Chuck's CD fame) clutching his chin in hopeless contemplation of the awful scene before him, and the fact that it was @draheim who posted it. I miss that guy, a lot, and hope he's well...

I also miss the pre-Shitshow era in the Pacific Northwest, circa no more than 3 or so years ago, but with places like Floodland coming into existence, and Fremont working their tails off to produce more and more in a race to keep up with demand, and so many other talented local breweries starting up, working equally hard, and trying to do their part to offer great beer to all of us with no real barriers or obstacles whatsoever, I have a distinct feeling we're going to be okay. In fact, we are all already very okay...

 

I walk my daughter to her dance class, and then we all walk to the University farmers market as a family after she's back from dance and my wife gets back from yoga. We've been doing it for about 10 years now and my daughter reluctantly has been dragged along for the last five. If we're not out of town that's our normal Saturday routine.

 

If someone invents a way of screening shitbags from buying beer from your brewery... hmu dawg. Seriously.

I know it's all yuks or whatever, but you're taking pot shots instead of talking about how KDS is literally the most egalitarian world class BA stout in existence. Insane hand-made fucking super consistently crazy good beer and you can actually get your hands on it if you have a job/family/etc. I don't wait in line for beer, because just the idea makes me want to curl up into a ball and die, but I am constantly thankful I don't have to in order to get a beer that good.

Holler when the talking about beer lines part of the conversation is over and we can talk about Smashing Pumpkins again.

 

There was a time in my life, back in high school, when Mellon Collie first came out, that I listened to certain tracks on disc 2 of that album so much I thought I'd wear them out before I flipped the page on the calendar. Twenty-plus years later, that still hasn't happened.

Here's one of them, for whatever it's worth: