NBS BIF #17 Hints and Hauls: Subaru Drivers Won't Keep Us From Our Magic Water Breakfast

Let's go! This is NBS BIF round 17 (AKA NBS BIF #14 Episode IV: A New Hope (for New Beer)), and we are live.

Quick rules reminder (very quick):

*Official share date: weekend of April 22-23.
*At least 96 ounces of new-to-your-target beer.
*At least one Mystery Beer.
*At least one local food (or food-related) item.
*At least one item of brewery "swag."
*You must drink at least one of your received beers on the official share weekend.
*Post at least two clues per week in this thread.

If you have not sent me and @FBarber your shipping information, any black out dates (or shipping restrictions), food allergies, and T-shirt size, please do that now. Please also include beer styles you specifically like or dislike, or any swag preferences, unless you're willing to roll the dice on your sender's tastes.

I'm putting together pairings this morning. Frank and I will review them, and once we're on the same page, I will send them out via BM.

 

Demographics and pairing information (you're welcome, @snaotheus ):

*We have only one participant in CA this round. Similarly, we only have one participant from MI. Both are typically strongly represented.
*No one from NY or NJ, nor OH or MN.
*Two participants from PA (three if you count @ovaltine ), WA (from each end of the state), wee CT, and MA.
*That means four New England participants. I expect the Fox Farm, Tree House, and Hill Farmstead to be flowing.
*No one from the US Southeast (FL, GA, SC, NC) or classic South (AL, MS), unless you count AR. TX is its own thing. No one from the pure Mid-Atlantic region (MD, DC, DE - put VA wherever you want, they're out, too).
*UT, ID, and AR are represented, which is awesome.

As far as what you can expect with pairings (to try and guess your sender):

*I will not pair someone in the same state.
*I will not pair someone with an adjacent state, if it can be helped.
*I will not normally pair someone with a target they've had before (as far as I have tracking data, which I think covers everyone in this round). That means that if someone was your official sender in a previous round, there is an extremely low probability that they are your sender this round. The farther back that pairing goes, though, the higher the probability. This absolutely does not include LIFs, ninjas, and retaliation; your previous sender is 100% in play to be your next target.
*I try to avoid pairing people in the same overall geographic region. This does happen, though, so it's not a hard no.

That last one requires some explanation. For simplicity, and based on distro and driving distances, I put the following states into these geographic clusters:

*PA is too close to the New England states in play (CT and MA). ME would be another story. So I'm lumping PA with CT and MA for "same region." I would do the same for NY and NJ if they were in play.
*CA is lumped with ID and UT.
*IL and AR are lumped, as are IN and AR. (No need for IL-IN, as they are already adjacent.)
*Yes, the Great Lakes region as a whole is a thing, but for these purposes, I'm not lumping PA and IL, or PA and IN. PA is pretty sufficiently distant from those two states, even if culturally it's obviously a lot closer to those states than the New England states. This isn't about culture; it's about distance and distro.
*That said, I am lumping MI and PA. Maybe that's just because of how it looks on a map. Sue me.

Finally, some interesting notes and demographics when looking at previous pairings:

*@ovaltine and @Whyteboar are the most limited based on previous pairings (not geography), each having targeted four different current participants before.
*TX, UT, IL, and ID seem to be our real wildcards here, with over 81% of the field for those senders without any concerns about geography (even soft limits) or previous targets. If you remove soft limits (same region, previous targets from sufficiently long ago), that shoots up to over 90% of the field in play.

Pairings coming soon .....

 

That's amazing. I love everything about what just happened here.