Side Project / Shared (2020)

You can find a flaw in literally any way that you do a release.

Club only? This one's obvious, but no one outside of the club can get it and everyone else misses out.

In person? Some people can afford to stand hours (and in extreme cases, days) in line to get the bottle they want. Anyone who doesn't have the time to do that either won't go and therefore, will never get the hyped releases, or, resorts to 3rd party muling in extreme cases. Of course, muling will always be a thing so I don't see a reason to really list this as a true issue. That is, unless there's proof that there's an intent to sell before acquiring the bottle.

Online free for all? Bots or a certain demographic who can afford to camp on a website for hours on end are going to have the most success. This alienates a lot of people who don't work in front of a computer all day.

Lottery? You'll have certain people creating tons of different emails or looking for any way to skirt the system. To think that every person will enter just 1 time is laughable. It's easy to involve as many family members in your pursuit as well. Of course, this is only if you don't have a unique way to truly enforce one entry a person. TG did that for their KBBS release back in 2016 I believe. Enter with a drivers licence #. It's still not perfect, but it eliminates the multiple email addresses.

It's best to just accept that at some point, you are going to be busy during an in person release, not available due to work or any slew of other reasons to be able to camp out online, or you're simply not in the club where a lot of coveted beers are released. You can't get them all. You'll eventually be successful at landing something but to expect easy access to every release is just not based in reality when there's such a limited amount of product.

 

Make every big sale No Proxy, limit 2.

Road trip for KC, Indy, Chi, Memphis folk & some patio biz for 2nd Shift & Perennial.

Win win for locals.

It would still sell out, right? You guys know the numbers.

 

Out of curiosity/naïveté, what portion of the successful buyers do you think are using bots? I hate that practice but wonder how widespread of a problem it is.

 

Yeah, no argument that demand is going to outpace supply when it comes to a lot of SP/Shared beers, no matter what the format is. The elephant in the room is that a lot of their beers are woefully underpriced, based on FMV.

If the brewery were indifferent to their customers, they wouldn't limit to one per person or have a Non-Proxy option. The transparency on IG about timing of major releases is also a push towards fairness. I think we all support those choices and SP's methods in that area.

The evolution of whatever SP chooses to put in place is what I'm most interested in. They care enough to monitor LC members and level the field with the steps I mentioned, so I'm optimistic that they're still looking to make sure the public gets a fair shake. The rub is doing that without burdening themselves so much that it's more trouble than it's worth; they don't make more money by making it harder to buy their product.

 

They could end proxies and every problem is solved.

 

It would definitely sell out. However, I think that Side Project recognizes that they have nationwide/worldwide appeal and that's why a lot of what is being released right now is available to proxies. I think they are trying to satisfy both demographics. Locals get their own product ID and proxies get another. I think that that is a great idea and I hope that they allow a bigger allotment for locals. You also have to remember that if proxies are buying the 1 hyped beer, they are probably buying more beer to justify the the hassle of securing a proxy and spending the cash to get the bottles to them. And in the Covid age, where to-go beer is the only form on income, I'd allow for this to continue to happen for the foreseeable future.

 

Probably more widespread than anyone wants to admit or believe.

It won't happen but the one way to stop this is increase the amount made. Not saying that will happen but the easier it is to get...the less these chasers are around

 

That wouldn't end the problem

 

It would definitely help.

Angry Chair had proxies for the first release. Gone instantly. After that no proxies and every release has been available for at least 10 minutes.

Obviously most of those are higher bottle counts, but still.

Sulla Terra being around for 10 minutes yesterday while the proxies sold out instantly also supports this.

 

And you know for fact no one was chasing these bottles to sell? That no one used a bot to buy? I going to assume you don't....but if you do please share

It doesn't eliminate the problem...just shrinks it. Which is better than nothing but I don't feel it eliminates it

 

Also, wasn’t it mentioned that the split between proxy and not proxy varies by release? If true, you certainly can’t base anything off any individual sale.

 

Isn’t the basis of “bots = bad” the fact that things are selling out basically instantly?


Seems to me that no proxy = lasting longer, so how is that not a solution? If things aren’t selling out immediately, then people don’t need bots.

 

The only actual solution is a corona vaccine and stop online sales.

 

Seems like a logical assumption but definitely won't stop those from trying to game it every way they can to get extra and flip.....I mean some person refilled and rewaxed BBT bottles and traded a dozen plus just to make money....I don't feel "no proxy" will solve the problem just band aid it.

 

Which goes back to shutting out people who work non-traditional hours. That's not meant as a complaint, just sort of how it is. I'm 2 min from SP, and the online releases are the only way I get a crack at a lot of this stuff.

 

Cycle solution works just fine.

 

Cory already said they’re redoing the web store so I guess we’ll see what happens.

 

Base Weight variant is live.