18th St Barrel Massacre

The good news for you, is that buying bottles and having a beer will run you right up to last call. You might not even be able to finish your beer. #2hourepicbarrelfest2016

 

Everyone joked about the lanyards being listed as something you get for the 70 bucks... but then this dropped. BOOOOOOM

FT: 18th street Lanyard
ISO: Derviation batch 2, Marshmallow Handjee (you need to add), Heady Topper (pappy barrel aged)

 

I think it'll be kind of crappy if we have to drink each of the BA offerings rather than selecting 7 of our own. If it was up to the consumer (like last years a la carte) I'd only drink BA Bank variants. Not into Flanders/Saison/Belgians. Guess they have to push the product. Last year was much better with individual pricing and plenty of more enticing BA Hunter variants like coffee vanilla, chili, coconut etc... Well hopefully there's a surprise something when we get there cause as it sits on paper, I really wish I'd have skipped out on the event and moreso saved my cash. But it is what it is.

 

There HAS to be a surprise coming right!? I mean, last year it was 'double allocations'....

I have a feeling they will do something awesome, and everyone who ponied up will be rubbing it in... at least, I hope so for the attendee's.

 

This.

I want to like 18th Street - really I do - and Drew is a cool guy from the very limited interactions I've had with him. I just really feel like this whole process has been crappy from the get-go and I'm hoping they do something really awesome to redeem themselves.

 

That^

 

Like that time they misrepresented the amount of BA Hunter bottles and then totally made up for it by selling infected Hunter coffee to the people that got shut out?

 

I'm hoping for this as well. I am also hoping that everyone getting to buy Cognac Bank was not that surprise.

 

To be fair, they never misrepresented the # of bottles available. The amount of people who showed up after say 8:30 for a 9:00 BA bottle release was simply far more than any limit they could make. But you can't really expect to show up 15min before a BA release in the Chicagoland area and still get anything. That's just how things have become.

And they then had Coconut hunter (not infected) for sale, which was unannounced. While not BA Hunter, was still a nice surprise IMO.

 

Yes and no re: misrepresentation. The tag on the labels revealed that there were 1,242 bottles. But concealed the fact that 600 were being held back for LoE members.

 

For discussion purposes, I'm not following that logic. The only way you knew that there were 1,242 bottles was because you or someone else saw the tags the day of, unless it was released beforehand (which I admittedly don't know either way), and word got around? Or did 18th announce that 1,242 bottles would go on sale?

And even then, no brewery is under obligation to sell all of what they produce at a bottle release. I do understand the argument that it pisses people off if they buy a ticket for a bottle release, and then said brewery later sells that beer without the upfront cost. But at the last regular BA release, they weren't selling tickets; they just didn't have enough supply for the demand, IIRC.

 

Word got around about the 1242 once the sale started. So people in the back of the very long line made the mistaken assumption that they'd get bottles. Which is why I didn't say a definitive "yes."

 

Of which the leftovers were to be sold to LOE members...they were never made available. I would expect similar with this year's BM bottles.

 

Gotcha.

I think the biggest problem with bottle releases is a lack of reliable information from the brewery to the patron. Most of the issues that people have with releases is wasted time waiting in line, and then gutting shut out, when that might have been preventable if the brewery had just been a little more proactive on informing their clientele on what they had available. There would still be grousing because everyone want / needs that beer, dammit, but at least they didn't stand in line for nothing.

 

I am not here to throw stones at anyone for their beliefs or opinions, I just want to share mine. I'm not saying your wrong about what you think, just want to offer a different side of the coin, so to speak.

I get where you are coming from with the information, I tend to agree. In the world we live in, there is plenty of outlets to share the information patrons seek. However, given that on one hand, here's how I see it from the other. I'm old enough that in my day a big thing was concert tickets. If you wanted to see band "X" you had to get up early, wait in line at a Ticket Master location and pray that you got there before scalpers did. There was no information outlet at that time to say you will get tickets if in line by "X". There was no ticket count available, there was no "hook-up" by knowing someone who worked there. You waited and sometimes you got and sometimes you didn't. Either way, it was the gamble you took to try and see your favorite band. That was your choice as a patron. Do I take that gamble and maybe lose some time waiting to maybe or maybe not get a ticket? It was my choice, that choice still exists today. You couldn't scream at the scalper who bought a bunch of tickets while you got shut out. You couldn't complain to Ticket Master and say "You should have reduced the number of tickets you sold to each person after you saw the line". It was a first come, first serve basis. I was on the not so good end on more than one occasion. I took it in stride and moved on.

What does this have to do with Beer? Same thing. You, I or anyone else are not entitled to the bottles. People in the craft beer world need to take a step back. Look at how hard releases have become. Look at the thousands of people that try for tickets to events/bottle releases etc. It's difficult to please everybody. WE all need to understand, not every time will be a home run. Yes we are lucky enough to have a sounding board(BA) to discuss and share our frustration. That however does not give us the right to tell a business, a legitimate business how to do what we think makes sense. I met Drew from 18th street and he strikes me as a dude who wants to brew beer and have folks enjoy it. I don't think he or his staff plot to screw people of of anything. Yes, the information might not be as forth coming as we would like, but it is what it is. We all know the gamble by standing in line for beer.

On a side note, someone I know didn't get bottles on the BA Hunter release. In BA fashion, I was able to take one of my bottles and pass it along to him. This is what we all need to do. It shouldn't be I got them and you didn't. It should be hey man, let me share some of my good fortune with you. If we all treat each other a tad better, perhaps the releases get better? Do I really need a case of this or that, no I don't. I only need a bottle or two so I can share with good friends.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to read the rumblings of a guy who missed a fair share of concerts and missed a few bottle releases.

Cheers all!

 

You actually can show up that late before opening and get BA releases, at least at stores. That may be slightly different than what you're referring to, if you're just referring to a brewery release, though. But, you could show up at stores upon opening (or later) for things such as BCBS (for the regular at least), KBS, Pipeworks BA stuff, Parabola, etc. With the track record of those places, one might say that is the smarter move. Granted, I like 18th Street stuff, and it's cool to support someone more up and coming, but it's tough to rationalize standing in line (and potentially being shut out) when I can get those BA releases with longer track records with less effort. It's obviously all a matter of preference, though, and how much you want a particular beer (I've done my share of waiting as well).

 

I agree 100% with what you posted; you and I are on the same page. You said it better than I could have, because I would have come off as being condescending. (inside joke)

Notice that I intentionally didn't mention 18th St by name, because to me this is a larger issue in the beer world, where there is much angst over getting / not getting whalzbro. I guess my only enhancement to your post would be to suggest that maybe by sharing information on the day of or prior to an event, a brewery could enhance their public rep, and that's only good for their business / bottom line in the long run.

 

I agree with you 100%. The beer community in general needs to be checked. I also agree the a little info prior never hurt anyone. Glad we are on the same page my good man. Now if we could only change a few more minds...

 

Everything was better back in 18-dickety doo when we all wore an onion in our belt (as was the fashion at the time).

Nah, it really wasn't.

Information is super easily disseminated these days and IMO it should be put out there so people can make informed decisions. You drive to a release, do a little math, determine if you'll get shut out on your primary purpose for going to a place and can then decide whether to stick around for some draft pours/food/other purchases/whatever or head somewhere else.

 

So, the BA Hunter release, I'm going to have the brewery's back on that one. They saw the demand out paced the supply, and they handed out tickets. They tweeted and told everyone, if you get a ticket, you can buy bottles. They handed out tickets at least 45" before doors opened. So if you didn't have a ticket, you knew. I have no problem with their procedure on that day at all.