Side Project (2018)

at least you’ll never be able to argue that those bottles are going to members only. i’m not a member and i’ve had 3 of those 4 beers.

 

I guess I just don't understand why a member of said group would take one of those beers made by one of the best breweries in the country that was given to you and trade it for...something that could, at the most, be almost as good?

If I was a member, each and every one of those beers would be would be opened as an occasion to sit down and share among friends and family...but then I am pretty old lol

 

I don't quite understand why trading away member beers would be disrespectful? I do it all the time with my Perennial membership bottles. I would think it would even make more sense for Side Project members to trade away their beers since some of the time they can have them on-site or share them with fiends that are also members. I don't think Cory would find it disrespectful, and actually quite the opposite. Cory doesn't have the market cornered on making great beers and I think he would admit as much. There are so many great beers out there why wouldn't you try and trade for them?

 

couldn’t agree more. you’re not going to trade for anything better (especially in the stout realm) and selling is just a slap in the face. like pissing on the golden ticket of beer.

 

I think it is different if you signed up for a membership like Perrennial vs. being asked into a membership by Cory. It's that simple to me.

One is you being gifted the opportunity to buy a bottle; the other you just stood in line for or whatever. Trading a bottle from Perrennial or any other membership that you just signed up for is equivalent to standing in line at a brewery to buy a bottle to me.

 

perennial societie beers are also available for take away to the general public though. most SP member beers are not.

 

If Cory thought it was disrespectful would he not have politely asked members not to trade beers? Also I still don't get this "gift" mentality. Is it a swell thing to do to ask your friends and family to be in the club? Absolutely, Is it a gift? No, gifts are given with no monetary request in return. If that was the case Christmas and birthdays would really suck.

 

lulz...

If you feel I'm the salty one, you haven't spent enough time (to your benefit) perusing the comments on the internet over the past decade. For the most part, I'm merely observing behavior.

However, since you seem to be open to answering questions you've not addressed in the past, while accusing me of saying that you "lie or whatever"...(pretty interesting phraseology there), can we sift through a few gems from our past? You might personally feel that the following comments and questions are antagonistic, "salty," or displeasing in some way, but in the end, these questions and feelings don't rise to the front of mind for most renowned or hyped breweries out there, and I'm really interested in your answers and responses.

You wonder how someone could sell (or trade) a bottle for "50 times" the amount you charged...but let's be honest, at these exorbitant prices and profit margins, how could they resist?

More to the point, after hyping a brand new, at the time unreleased bottle of beer to the most intense degree you can muster, how can you justify charging $60 for it, after taking stances like you have in the past, as shown in the following video:

Regardless, and I'm genuinely curious, how aren't your many wild ales, that you sell for ~$30 cheaper, technically around the same cost, or even more expensive, to produce than something like OWK? Especially the heavily fruited ones that spend a lot of time occupying a lot of space in your cellar, I can only assume.

Why are you bottling and waxing the hell of out limited release bottles for on-site consumption? If offering a beer for on-site consumption is as important to you as you say it is, there are a million and one more reasons to keg it than to go through the overwrought, more costly, and shamelessly hype-generating process you do to pour a beer on-site, especially for one that you never intend to sell to-go in the first place. In the beer world, it comes across as having way too much deference for the way vintners do things.

Which is a good transition to Punchdown:

I don't know if you found people's confusion or ignorance amusing, ignored it, or didn't see it posted or asked about on any version of online forum or social media, including your own, but...

Did Punchdown have grapes, grape juice, or wine added to it?

Judging from other brewers' methods, I'd guess grape juice, but your blog post seems pretty intent on clouding that, causing different readers to formulate positions based on how highly they regarded both your brewing techniques, and the wine industry. It was a wholly odd.

Honestly, when it comes to hyping limited beer releases, you use too much flowery yet imprecise and vague language that leads to far more conjecture and rumors than even you may intend. Obviously, I don't really know what's going on in your head, I can only draw conclusions based on the way you present your information. This language seems intentionally misleading more often than not, to try to either hide the quantities that will be available at times, or that will be allotted, or the process or ingredients used to create the finished product. You don't really need to hype your beer like that, the interest is there just by posting a picture, and often before.

I do appreciate when a brewer such as yourself takes the time to lovingly describe the process and thoughts behind a beer, but the way in which you do it sometimes has a certain touch to it that skews perception and leads to unfounded rumors and downright false assumptions made by many in the general public.

Either way, thanks for taking the time to come out here and pay the toll to us trolls @coryking

 

So if you're buddy worked at a liquor store, and he realized just how into bourbon you are, and he said, "Hey man. It's limited whiskey season. I just got in this bottle of PVW23. Would you like to buy this for MSRP?"

Are you telling me that because you had to pay $230, that it would not be insulting as shit to turn around and trade that bottle?

 

I would argue that it is open to interpretation. If SP does not want people trading membership bottles, they should specifically say so in the terms and state what the penalty would be. Otherwise, people can do whatever they want with their bottles.

 

This thread has become great reading material.

 

Personal integrity?

 

Sorry, but I didn't read back through all of the posts that I had missed since last time I was on here.

As for the comment about me lying:

Can you source a reference or reason for this post? Is this not claiming that I lie?

Again, where are you coming from? I mean seriously, all BS, all internet lingo and laughing aside, I am genuinely curious. If you can mention what you are talking about I will continue to have this conversation, if not, then I will chalk it up to the odd sport of "trolling", something that doesn't bother me, but I do find intriguing.

To answer some of your questions:
How couldn't I expect someone to sell a bottle thats worth 50 times what they paid for it - I honestly can't. Hence the reason I don't like the secondary market (something that really didn't exist when I used to trade beer). If there wasn't all of these FB and underground selling sites, then a bottle wouldn't be given a 50 times value and then the owners of the bottles wouldn't be tempted to sell them. I understand why people sell the bottles, but like stated, I don't like it. A $60 bottle tastes better than a $3000 bottle.

Then the 5 year old video that you referenced:
Things have changed in 5 years, I've changed in 5 years, and things are really going to change in the next 5 years. You have to understand that? One big thing for me is that I no longer drink the volume of beer I used to with 2 kids at home now. So where does that put me, I would rather sit down and drink 1 really great beer a night then several bottles of another. Meaning that I am much less price sensitive when drinking beer, wine or whiskey now that I used to be. I don't mind spending the money to enjoy something special. No matter what, people will forever gripe about pricing, but its not going to change, pricing is a tricky formula of costs, but fortunately for us, our fans have always supported us pushing the envelope when it comes to the costs of our ingredients. If we were too expensive, we wouldn't be moving the beer as fast as we do. Don't let that come off as sounding that our pricing is based on that, if you haven't noticed, we have been adding even more fruit to our sour/wild ales then before, we have sourced more oak to make more of these beers, we have hired more people to help make more beer, and we have pushed the amount of vanilla that we could afford into a single batch of beer. If we couldn't charge some of these prices, we couldn't make some of these beers (OWK).

Please research the current cost of vanilla beans and then get back to me on why OWK was $60 for on-site enjoyment and $60 to-go .

You really just don't like the way we do things, do you? Your comment on draft versus bottles for on-site enjoyment is nearsighted. Bottling spreads the beer out the most for on-site enjoyment. Draft moves faster than bottles and creates logistical issues when we have rushes. All fo the bartenders pouring from 1 tap as opposed to being able to grab multiple bottles and hand them to customers. Have you ever worked in a bar? I only ask because you have some very strong opinions on this matter.
We also wax on-site purely for hype (HA, I joke!). We wax them because unwaxed bottles have been taken home, refilled and sold. I have personally experienced some counterfeit Side Project bottles. Waxing them prevents that. Also, I am a wine guy, I like opening a bottle and sharing it around table, so yes, it is inspired by the wine industry.

Also, you are correct, the most expensive beers to produce for us are some of our heavily fruited wild ales. With them however, we have the small benefit of economy of scale where our fastest bottling line is our sour line, we have invested in foedres, our wild/sour storage area is larger than our clean barrel storage area, our processes are more honed to making our sour beers. As a result, our clean beers become the biggest pains to produce - we bought an entirely different bottling line, we shut down sour production when doing clean beers, we send all clean beers to an independent labs for expensive analysis, the clean beers have their own warehouse in which we have to pay someone to come move beer to and from for us. Our Stouts are asked about almost daily, however, we make very little of them in comparison (even though we have been brewing a lot more of them). All in all, making 100% oak aged beers just isn't cheap or easy. You as the consumer have to decide if our quality and price are something that works for you.

Punchdown verbiage:
Didn't know that there were so many issues with my Punchdown post! Also, my blog post did not intend to cloud anything! Punchdown Pinot Noir is California Pinot Noir Grape juice (non stabilized so we got all of their funky bugs in there too) that was blended with mature Side Project beer. The mixture then refermented. Punchdown Chambourcin Blend 2 (not released yet) is Missouri Chambourcin Grape Must (mixture of juice and skins that is non stabilized) and then blended with mature Side Project beer and referemented. I don't like the term juice, because juice is stabilized (pasteurized or has sulfites) where we specified asked for no stability so we got their bugs and yeast in the beer too. Once wine grapes are fermented, its wine though. So its truly a wine/beer hybrid.

Also, sorry that my verbiage is flowery, imprecise and vague. I don't agree with that at all. I feel pretty good about my posts considering math and science are my fortes and I come from a time where I wasn't taught "trolling" in college.

 

@coryking you may be the only one to have read @Sabtos ridiculously long post.

 

@coryking any chance we'll see a new batch of coffee shop vibes in the future?

 

I like that these posts from Sabtos are focusing on punchdown, because they certainly read like sour grapes.

 

@coryking thanks for weighing in, hopefully people understand where you are coming from.

Personally, let me just say that most of my personal criticism for La Coterie stems from your members' actions, and not you. As an individual who has been coming to your releases since the very beginning and buys bottles to actually drink them, it really sucks to see people you deemed regulars or friends selling, razzling, or completely trade ****** folks over membership beers. I don't really trade these days except with people I have history with, so maybe I'm just living in the past and don't understand modern beer culture.

If there is one thing in regards to La Coterie which I believe was handled badly, it was giving members priority on Zwanze Day. It really didn't seem fair that members were guaranteed a spot while the rest of us had to scramble for the leftover table scraps. I'd always thought of Zwanze as a worldwide coming together of sorts, not a reward for club members. If this had been a Side Project event and not one hosted by Side Project, I'd completely understand giving members first dibs

Otherwise, keep the good brew flowing!

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Punchdown Pinot Noir.

What got under my skin was certain users feeling the need to fill in the blanks, sometimes defensively so, acting like Cory was pouring wine into fermentation, making his own SP wine and blending it into the beer, or doing something no other brewer has ever done, when in reality he was using must and/or non-stabilized juice during refermentation.

As to "Once wine grapes are fermented, its wine though," I'm gonna bow out from that one.

I'm not quite sure what this question is getting at, but since you took the time to answer my questions, I'll answer. As my profile openly states, I'm in Ohio (to be specific, residing in Akron mostly, but spending most of my free time in Cleveland). I have nothing to hide on this particular discussion, I've openly stated my pet peeves while happily admitting I've enjoyed plenty of your beers on draft at collab events (some you've attended), private events, and festivals, and have traded for way more. I travel a lot, and always keep beer as a primary sphere of influence in those travels, but have yet to set aside time to make it to STL, although it was on a failed itinerary once or twice. Although I personally haven't set foot in any of your places, I've had friends move to STL for short stints and purchase beer on my behalf to bring back on their return trips to Ohio. I'm really not sure why it any of that matters in the slightest, to be honest.

Absolutely things change, but when one takes a moral stance on an issue, to the point of promoting it to others in the industry, one tends to at least attempt to hold onto those things more dearly or firmly over their lifetimes. Listen, I don't think there's anything wrong with charging what people will pay, but the question bears asking to someone who has taken the previous stances you have, that's all. I'm not the only one who's asked, just the only one that will ask it to you when you pop on here.

Anyway, when you jumped into the cost of your fruited wilds and then back into the cost of your clean ales, things began to become more clear. I've already said, if I was there for OWK, I would have paid it, begrudgingly so, sure. I'll still hold that's an insane price to charge for beer, but it is what it is.

I get it, this is your baby, your business, you're very sensitive on the subject and you haven't spent as much time as others might interacting with people online on the matter, but it's not about whether I personally like the way you do things or not. On many aspects, I personally feel neutral. I simply call out to question when it seems to me that people say one thing, and do another.

A whole lot of breweries and bars handle, very efficiently, limited draft releases. Allowing people to get a ~5 ounce pour of a beer instead of a 22 ounce bottle spreads that beer around a helluva lot more and takes a lot less time than struggling to tear apart extremely hardcore waxed bottles. I'd hazard a guess you just find it easier to keep track of people that got bottles as opposed to drafts...which I don't get but is the way you want to do things. Maybe you like being able to give people a collectible empty to take home as well. I've never heard anyone in a bar say they prefer opening bottles, (especially waxed!), to waiting a few seconds for a fellow bartender to pour a draft. The complaint might stem more from having to wash all the smaller glassware, but that seems to be an inherent issue in these limited releases no matter where you are.

My "sources" were illustrated via the above questions and comments regarding your still present social media and blog posts, particularly the perceived exaggeration and hyperbole, the perceived vague and misleading language, and other tactics you often employ during releases and events, unintentionally or otherwise, which you've mostly addressed.

So again, I appreciate you reading and responding. I'll even give you a highly coveted, $60 waxed and gold-flaked Like.

Bleep bloop.

 

@coryking So no more Busch(light) at releases? Shame.

In all seriousness, I appreciate your defense of SP. It is very rare to see the actual brewer come on these pages, but as you probably have experienced in one day, the salt in here is pretty deep.

As for me, keep releasing those beers! I can't make them all, but as I've said before, I used to come for the beer, but now I come for the share. Good times, and even better beers to share with the friends I've made.

 

Absolutely!!
We have Coconut Vibes in the tank now, but planning on Coffee Shop next .