Figured it might be worth creating a designated thread for chatter about the 2016 release of BCBS in the greater Nashville area. I know Craft Brewed has released details about their Black Friday morning event, and I assume Midtown will be doing their usual early morning bourbon and BCBS release (though haven't seen any specifics). Anyone else know any details for other places and plans around town?
I really have nothing to add to this thread but questions. My travel plans got changed up and it looks like I will be in Nashville this Friday. I looked at the event you mentioned (thanks for posting) and I had a few questions that perhaps you could answer. It looks like Craft Brew and Midtown are both bottle shops are they going to have bottles for purchase or just beers to consume on site? Also do you have to purchase tickets on line or can you do so at the door. I ask these questions under the assumption your in the know. Thanks for the feedback.
Both Craft Brewed and Midtown (and Frugal and Woodland, etc) are going to be selling individual bottles of BCBS (and other seasonal releases). Craft Brewed does a whole Friday morning event where you can purchase a ticket that gets you breakfast, some beers, and a reserved spot in the BCBS line at 10:00am. But I think you can also just show up sometime before 10:00am and get in line, though I'm not sure whether they'll have enough for everyone that shows up. Midtown opens its doors at 8:00am (or at least has in the past) and they'll be a line for folks waiting on special bourbon bottles and a line for BCBS and special wine specials. No ticket system there, just first come, first served.
Craft brewed will be a bottle of reg, coffee and a crowler of bcbs as long as it lasts. Probably around 20 or so people for the coffee and maybe 30 for the crowler and about 50 for reg bcbs bottles . Frugal will be similar allocation, usually they let you get back in line for reg if you want, midtown should be a shit show as they have bourbon and beer release and that tends to bring out alot of people. Those are your best bets. They all open at different times so its hard to hit multiple spots.
For what it's worth, Midtown sent out their email about Black Friday this morning, and the special bourbon and beer releases are now going to be done at different times: 8:00am for bourbon, 10:00am for beer. (In the past they were both at 8:00am). Don't know if it was an oversight or intentional, but BCBS isn't actually explicitly mentioned in their communication about special beers being released. KBS, 120 Minute IPA, and World Wide Stout are all mentioned, but not BCBS. Have to think that's still part of the program, but interesting that it's not specifically mentioned.
The bottle shops are reporting only getting about half what they got last year. Coffee is going to be extremely limited. Not sure why Tennessee continues to not get any Barleywine. Midtown is limiting it to 1 bottle per address. So you can't even have your spouse get a second bottle. That's going a bit far IMO.
I got 2 reg and 1 coffee at Woodland. They had 1 case of coffee and 4 or 5 of reg. I got 1 reg at Main St. They had 1 case of reg.
Everyone I talked to (except for Maryland Farms) said they got less than last year. I was able to get 2 bottles of regular at Maryland Farms and 1 at Midtown. Maryland Farms only had 5 bottles of coffee (they got zero last year) and Midtown had none. Based on other BCBS-related threads it sounds like supply was pretty drastically limited this year, with rumor being that a lot had to be tossed due to poor quality.
For Craft Brewed to have as little as they did supports that rumor. Some people waited 5+ hours to get 1 coffee and 1 reg.
