Toppling Goliath Releases and Updates

Thought train:

1. OOOOHHHH. KBBS!!! That's the #1 beer on BA. I have to try to get a bottle!
2. I hope I don't have anything going on on Nov 13 at 1100.
3. I hope my internet is fast that day
4. It's $100.
5. Huh. No tasting. At least I get the bottle and can get another MD.
6. It's a 5 hour drive in the middle of December
7. It's $100...
8. Loop of 6 + 7
9. Tells fiance the above. Feels shame.

 

- There are at least 800-1000 hardcore tickers who are more than willing to pay $100 or more for the tick and guaranteed instagram/untappd glory. And there are probably about 5x as many profiteers who are hoping to land a ticket so they can resell a bottle to one of those 800-1000 who didn't get a ticket. That's what this will boil down to mostly. So yes, tickets will sell out and it will sell out incredibly fast.

- I'm a bit torn on the pricing. We all know it is steep and will price out many people. But even if TG were to sell it at $40, for example, profiteers are still going to flip these at much higher prices. Given this I do feel the brewery (i.e., the creator of the product) is entitled to seeing more of this 'lost money'. Lost money from their perspective in that they cannot control the after market activity once they have sold the bottles.

- I just wish TG would have made this onsite consumption only. Heck, at 12 ozs don't even really need a DD after drinking your $100 beer. Maybe lower the price some and add a charity portion to the bottle price to raise a couple grand for a local charity. One can dream.

- Is it the online ticket is $6 and the purchaser still needs to pay the $100 on pickup? Hmm, if so I might try to get a ticket just to potentially keep one less bottle out of a profiteer's hands. TG keeps the bottle and then sells it for onsite consumption some later day. Win-win in my book. A worthy $6 donation imo.

 

The $6 is just for the opportunity to pay $100 so yes one could take that approach. More likely is that they will hold the unclaimed bottles and sell them at a hyped up cellar sale where people wait 24 hours in line only to find out there are 5 KBBS available and all the Naughty Temple you can handle.

 

You guys need some advice from a former radio personality (and current pod-cast personality) here in the Twin Cities. If you want it, buy it.

Then, tell your wife / fiancé / etc. that you paid whatever amount you want the they will accept. Just remember, there are three prices:

1. The price you paid;
2. The price you told her you paid;
3. The price you will pay when she finds out the price you paid.



Seriously, though, there is no way I'm going to pay $100 for a 12 oz bottle of beer. No way.

(PS: All those who believe TG has not been ramping up to this, to sell the beer themselves for a big chunk of the after-market price... now, don't you feel silly?)

 

This "lost money" - isn't TG creating that money that it then loses by limiting the supply so much in the first place? I mean look at CBS this year - it's gonna shelf turd like crazy because it's getting national distro and it was just released last year. If they really wanted to max profitz they should just go that route. If the "lost money" is by their own doing, I don't think they're entitled to it at our expense.

 

I can't answer TG's ability to supply KBBS. Sure questions can be made on that end but I'm speaking to what is known now, that's TG's KBBS yield is ~800-1k bottles.

 

Wasn't that as part of a $200 package with 2 bottles of Assassin though? You could hash out the math to mean 2 bottles of Assassin at $50 per + 1 kbbs at $100 per, but you would still be walking away with 56 ounces of beer costing $3.58/ounce rather than 12 ounces at $8.33/ounce.
Not to mention, three bottles and pours (if I am remembering this correctly) makes the trip a lot more justifiable than a single 12 ounce bottle and no pour, no?

 

So maybe this is all just a collaborative ruse to elevate PR into god-tier status as they rain excellent, reasonably-priced brews from the heavens onto us waxless plebs?

Not all heroes wear capes, folks.

 

Maybe TG will read all this feedback and cancel the release like ADWTD Day?

 

TG would sooner read the feedback, delete the negative posts, blacklist the naysayers, and double the price. GG swilldrinkers.

 

I don't think the question is are there enough pastrybois to plunk down $100 for this beer, there certainly are, it's how many people are turned off by this practice? What value is TG placing on the alienation? And clearly they see great value in keeping the release small and the hype high and at least getting close to maximizing $/bottle. How would that compare to scaling this up like GI BCBS which maintains a high degree of hype and a super high cost per ounce but they sell a fuckton of?

 

You honestly think this will have a net negative impact on TG's sales? You've been bitching about TG or a while now.

And GI isn't exactly the patron saint of breweries. No thanks to having everyone scale up their hype stouts.

 

I'm asking how would you know if it did?

I wouldn't describe what I've been doing "bitching." I've been describing explicit practices that bug me while complementing the things that I like. In my mind, "bitching" is just general whining or complaining.

And I never said or implied that GI is anything like a patron saint. TG has clearly decided that selling a small amount of their stouts at inflated prices is better for their bottom line than selling exponentially more of them at lower prices, and based on all of their other activity they're clearly factoring in the importance of hype and the role of scarcity in building that hype as crucial to their brand. I have absolutely no problem with them doing so, they can build a business however they want. I happen to think, though, that it's both not a brand I personally care to buy into, and that they're probably wrong in the long term benefits of their approach, but I'm curious to hear people with some background in this area try to break it down. Most of this thread is just people wanting things the way they want them. I'm trying to get at the business decision.

But I have to firmly disagree with "no thanks to having everyone scale up their hype stouts." The only people artificial scarcity helps are people with means, either in terms of money or an excess of time. I much prefer the democratization that scaling up provides. That doesn't mean I have any desire to deny any brewery their approach, I'm just saying I'm perfectly comfortable buying beer that doesn't require fanatical levels of devotion in terms of time, attention, or cost.

 

Or, to put it another way: I still buy their beer because it's among the best around.

I buy much less because the company itself has turned me off. Because the demand for their beer still mostly exceeds the availability in the market, this loss of revenue (or future revenue) may be invisible to TG.

I'm not egotistical enough to assume that my experience maps for everyone, but I see a lot of TG sitting on shelves, all of the people I know locally who know TG enough to have an opinion on them share a similar perspective on them as a business, I hear and read complaints about their consistency and availability. None of these things MEAN TG isn't operating completely optimally. But it doesn't seem like it from my perspective and I have reason to believe my experience isn't unique. At some point I'd imagine they either have to make some changes to impact how they're perceived or they'll eventually suffer for it.

But those consequences, if they happen, are somewhere down the road. Maybe years down the road. You can't measure long term damage to their brand through the lens of how fast KBBS sells out this year, because you only need a fraction of the TG audience to support that sale.

 

You don't know they have "clearly decided" anything. You cynically assume they made a decision based on greed(?), when in fact the batch size could have easily been determined based on barrel selection or logistics. Then you question the business decision in terms of profit.

I'm sure you know about how much time and effort (and failure) went into building GI's barrel program. It would take years for TG to build that up. More to the point, I don't want more BCS, BA Abyss, etc. If TG produces a BA stout in large capacity I want it to be in addition to KBBS.

Edit: If they could make enough KBBS to distribute, great! But I highly doubt they could maintain quality and consistency at that scale.

 

I think it's pretty clear based on the $100 price tag they are making decisions based on greed.

 

I realize there are some nuanced differences, but these same things have been said about nearly every brewery who expands. And yet you argue they should make more beer--as long as it's the beer you really covet.

 

The conversation was about quantity, not the price. He was implying they are artificially limiting the supply.