4 Elf / BBPt5 Problems?

Wow - an announcement like this should have been done a long time ago - not the day before the party. This smells of shenanigans.

 

I overheard last night on my bar stool there, that they will have 27 or 28 different beers on tap for the party.

 

I don't think that's a whole lot different than past years. Let's hope that they plan a bit better for quantities though, so that things don't start kicking within hours of opening the gates.

 

Gonna miss this one for the first time in a few years, but I’m not too upset about it.

 

I think that’s a strange/bold decision of them to distribute BA Plead. I really think the big thing it had going for it was its exclusivity and the attached party. Distributing if to all their markets in a sea of BA stouts could lead to this sitting on shelves. But, doing it in April could help, since most big stouts will have released already and it could be a bit of a down time as IPAs start kicking in.

 

They 'piloted' distro last year with bbpt5, so perhaps they learned something from that. Or, maybe more likely, I am giving them too much credit.

 

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m all about buying a BA stout in April

 

They should “pilot” getting a taproom that doesn’t look and feel like a shithole.

 

Of the entire "compound", the tap room is the most underwhelming. The bakery, beer garden, shop are where it seems they've invested the most in recent years. And it shows.

 

Oh but the 'character' of the place is all about the experience of going there -- maybe more of an experience than the selections on their tap list (although they are recently getting much better at always having some good one-offs).

 

I didn’t check out the other spots in the compound. I’ll have to take your word for it, as I don’t envision going back.

 

Probably beacuse there are cases of LAST year's BBPt5th sitting on shelves in Kzoo

Have you been to 4 Elf before?
They rival Kuhnhenn for least timely/least informative event communications, this is their M.O.

I think BBPt5th drove the party in the past but the last couple of years the party itself has been the attraction, not the beer

 

I think this is spot on... In addition that BBA stouts are in general easier to produce and find.

 

Seems even more reason to keep the beer attached to the party.

 

Same. My four year streak is coming to an end. Wonder if we ever ran into one another...

 

If you spent anytime in front of a fire, we probably did.

 

So with that logic, BA Stouts probably just collect dust down south. I've always been puzzled about this whole weather dependency on beer options.

 

Yeah man. They hate BA stouts in Southern California.

 

I'm also surprised by the announcement to distribute, but delay BBPt5 until spring. Depending on when in April it drops, that could be pretty close to coinciding with KBS.

I was pretty underwhelmed by 4 Elf this year. We decided to try a different tack this time and get there right at opening - we've had some bad experiences in the past where the flagship beers were tapped out by early evening. Got there right at 11am (announced start time), but DH didn't actually have anything set up inside the tent yet, so groups of befuddled attendees kept wandering into the taproom to drink Crooked Tree while the outside taps were being organized. I felt kind of bad for the servers that had to keep explaining that all the good beer was outside...but it wasn't ready yet...can I get you another Boffo Brown in the meantime. We had a pizza and a round inside, which wasn't a bad way to start anyway. The first beers outside kicked around 3ish, which was again kind of surprising, but the big ones (maple bourbon/rum Pt5, blueberry/coconut stout, 4Elf variants, etc) were still going strong when I left at 7 pm, so that was good news. The food situation has gone downhill though. In the past, one of the cool aspects was servers going around with trays of appetizers to hand out so you could sample a little something without dealing with the giant line. Now, there's just one big table that always had a line 50-100 deep. People would camp out waiting for whatever roasted animal was supposed to be on the way "in just a few minutes", which just clogged everything up.

Having spent the previous evening at Bell's Eccentric Day, I think I like that so much better now. It's inside/warm, multiple free food stations without the giant line, etc.