Line or lottery?

Lottery.

 

Lottery. It's more random and a ton of mules/flippers will enter, but saves the hassle.

 

Ticketed release. Or better lottery system than prop day where the winner doesn’t even have to be present!

 

Once the bad taste of what happened in Chicago this year wears off, you'll all remember the history and significance of lining up on Black Friday.

 

Like the lottery idea, but nothing is guaranteed. At least with a line, you can determine your own fate. I’d be shitty if they did the lottery and I didn’t get a chance to purchase

 

GI needs to put together a fancy case of 1 of each BCBS and variant being released,, have an online lottery for the Chicagoland area and you have a week to pick up the set. Any duplicates are out and charge a premium like HA does with their Whole Enchilada...

 

Lottery!
I'm so sick of lines

 

Lottery. You don't see the Chicago Cubs selling playoff tickets via a lineup at Wrigley. Imagine if the same principle of "tough it out for days on end outside my property" was the preferred way of distribution of highly coveted things IRL.

 

It seems like this year was the tipping point between "fun line up event" and "holy shit, we can't have people lining up".

I've never done this event at all, but unless Binny's is willing to have staff on-site monitoring the situation on Thanksgiving, they should go lottery from now on.

 

Beer releases are also different in that when a line forms, the attendees feel entitled to drink in public for hours on end in the early hours of the morning.

 

Written test on the history of Goose Island and Bourbon County. Must be able to identify the vintage in a blind taste test as well as the blend barrels used and age of the bourbon they held.

To qualify for the test you must also have a Chicago drivers license, Chicago birth certificate, be able to correctly list all ingredients on a Chicago style hotdog, identify what each star on the Chicago flag represents, match the Interstate numbers to their names, explain who Trixie and Chad are,

Complete these phrases:

588-2300 ...
773-202 ...
If you can't find it at Binny's...
A couple, two ...
Favorite actor ...

Correctly pronounce these words as a Chicagoan:
The
Jewel
Willis

If you pass the pre-test and test you get a mixed 12 case of variants and reg. Unless you ever posted AB sux on BA, then you need to buy a case of Bud or 312 first.

 

Huzzah!!

The favorite actor is obviously Bill Murray, but do you get a bonus vintage variant if you say Dennis Farina??????

 

I'd love to see something like Founders does with KBS or CBS. Ticketed event, with release over multiple days. Cutout the middleman. Would love to see Prop Day become Prop week. Goose is actually getting better at their events...

 

Fucking love it !!

 

Besides lines versus lottery, a lot of the discussion has also been about beer designated for locals as opposed to out-of towners, but that argument doesn't work for me either. I bet a large percentage of people who are local and go for Bourbon County beers don't actually buy any other Goose Island beers the whole year between Bourbon County releases, despite living in Chicagoland. So I guess I'm making a case in favor of regulars over locals.

If I owned a brewery, I'd have some kind of membership ID (optional if you want one or not). That membership ID would be tied to how many purchases have been made at brewery/taprooms. Once over certain amount of purchases, you've assured yourself an allotment (lets say 50% of total beer produced for that special release is set aside for those 'regulars' allotments). The remaining 50% is sold via lottery in smaller allotment to get it into as many hands as possible.

This way you're rewarding the regulars (who are also likelier to be local than out-of-towners but not necessarily in all cases). Flippers will have to earn their allotment by spending money. If you want to have multiple people use the same ID, then those people will have to split that one allotment. No lines. No muling. And everyone that's not a regular still gets a chance at the special release via lottery. There is no perfect system, but this would be the way I'd run it if I owned a brewery.

 

No need for anyone else to respond after this.

 

I spoke with about six or seven different groups in the Binnys LP line this year. Every group was from Chicago metro area. That includes the guys at number 1 and various spots through 150.

 

regardless if they go with a line, lottery, or even some pre-set box set, I think hoarders etc will always find a way to beat the system. Until the mindset changes that I don't need 15 variants, maybe just 2-3 is enough, I don't think anything will change.