Black Friday 2014 Bourbon County Release

Total Wine in Clearwater still had the regular BCBS in stock as of around 11:30AM this morning. The BW is now sold out.

 

I took the scenic route on my drive from Tampa to Miami today. Still lots of regular BCBS available at ABCs and TWs throughout SW Florida. The Naples TW appeared to be low on BCBS, but I have no clue if they have any more hidden away. The Fort Myers TW still had 5+ cases but a 1 4-pack limit. A couple places had the barley wine. Not surprisingly no vanilla or coffee to be found.

 

If you are in the Atlanta area, specifically the southside of town, there's a growler/bottle shop in Newnan that has BCBS on draft for growlers.

2014 might be the most drinkable BCBS, fresh wise, that I've had.

 

That just blows me away. Major craft beer store pulled teeth just to see a case of BCBS, but random places in nowhere got a keg. The spread out of this release makes absolutely zero sense to me.

 

Coffee is on tap at World of Beers in Wellington (WPB area) right now.

 

^ wrote exactly this on my untappd checkin a few days ago.

 

Yeah, I don't know how the whole system works for stores to jockey their reps to get some allocation.

I do know that, they have it on tap and I haven't seen it at growler shops yet. Admittedly, I haven't looked hard, but mostly hear of a couple bars getting kegs.

 

I agree. I think choosing certain cities to have "events" in also threw off the distribution. I mean why send nearly all of the state of FL's supply of Vanilla to Jacksonville? No one even likes Jacksonville, not even people who live in Jacksonville like Jacksonville! I kid, I kid.

But on a serious note, it is a weird way to do a release. And like I said several pages ago, I don't necessarily agree with spreading out a pseudo-limited release to your entire distribution area. I think it adds to the hype train, and makes it seem more "rare" than it actually is. Although theoretically it "shares the wealth" and allows more people to have a chance to get the beer, in reality what it does is impose very strict bottle limits, lines out the door, and leaves lots of people disappointed.

I'd love to see a bottle count on Vanilla. My completely random guess is 20-30k bottles, at least. When was the last time you remember this kind of craziness on a 30k bottle release beer?

Also want to comment on SC's supply this year. Not sure if its the whole state of just the Charleston area, but last year BCBS lasted for a couple weeks on the shelf at TW. You could essentially get an unlimited amount if you stopped in each day and got the one 4 pack limit. This year's supply of BCBS at TW is already gone. I wouldn't be surprised if some popped back up in a few weeks (like BCBBW did last year), but as of now it looks like the CHS supply is tapped.

 

Same thing here in FL... My local ABC in the Tampa area which sells a lot of craft beer got 3 cases of BCBS and 1 case of each of the variants. I was in an ABC today in Charlotte Harbor, which a snowbird town in SW Florida, and they still had 10 cases of BCBS and 3 cases of barley wine. So hard telling how much they started with. Truly bizarre

 

A southwest FL town with unlimited BCBS and BCBBW seems like a true paradise to me.

I suspect a second wave release of regular BCBS and barleywine to hit the shelves at some point.

 

In defense of the Brass Tap, they are not necessarily intentionally price gouging. It is my understanding that as a bar their cost for a case of beer is significantly higher than a retailer (i.e. TW or ABC) for the same case of beer. They typically offer a 25% discount for carryout bottles, however they are not offering this discount for the Vanilla

 

Just curious, where did you hear this? You certainly may be right, but I never heard that bars pay more money for beer than bottle shops/liquor stores.

Also, for what its worth, I don't even consider $40 a bottle a price gouge if its at a bar. Shit, I know tons of places that charge $5 a beer for Bud Light. Thats approximately a 500% mark up. Makes the $40 Vanilla Rye look like a steal.

 

Also, if anyone wants to hook me up and buy one of the said $40 bottles of Vanilla at the Brass Tap, I will gladly reimburse you, and will ship a couple treats your way as a thank you.

 

I heard this directly from the GM of a different Brass Tap several years ago... They had bottles of DFH 120 for like $20 and the ABC right across the street had them for the normal $10-$12 each, and I asked him why that was... Perhaps he was just giving me a line of BS, but he said his cost was higher than what the retail stores were charging.

 

i have heard this as well. a local bar near me said when they order beer, they are paying roughly retail for it, since it is supposed to be drank on site. i believe the guy, and with this statement as well, i think this is why certain bars charge so much.

 

That is interesting. I always thought bars just charged more cause 1) they could, and 2) they had higher overhead

 

Greensboro didn't get much, I did find a love 4 pk yesterday though, I'm quite sure all the reg is gone. Wonder if e odd coffee will pop up this week, I hear Bestway has a case.

 

As a reformed bar owner LOL. Most bars and restaurants do not necessarily pay a higher price as in RETAIL. However the TW and ABC and Bevmos all get a discount for buying quantity.
The only way to explain it is using Macro Beer. Those downtown clubs and bars that do 3 for 1 on bottle beer can do it because they buy 100 cases at a time and getting a pretty good discount. This discount gives them an effective cost of say $1 per bottle. If they are doing 3 for 1s at $5 they are still making $2 per sale.
So if TW in one Distributers area buys 100 cases between 3 stores they get a discount. On something limited like BCBS and variants I assure you there is not a huge disparity in discounts. This is such a hot commodity the distributers know that the retailers will buy it for almost any price.
As far as $40 for the Vanilla. That is maybe a little high if it were a basic $14-$17 cost bottle. But the manager at my local ABC said it was $18 per bottle cost in his system. They would have sold it for $24.99 if they got any.
That bar may have paid $20 a bottle, Now a 50% markup on a bottle for on premise consumption is not unheard of when you Factor in overhead and labor. Also if you normally sell take home bottles at a 25% discount it makes even more sense. As a bar owner if I knew I could get $40 a bottle I would do it. $50 would be pushing it for me.
But I have a conscience and that is one reason I sold my bars. LOL but that is another story.

 

What he said above. In GA, no matter who is buying it from the distributor, whether it's a retail package store, grocery store, bar, restaurant, it's all the same price. Now some distros give a discount if you buy more, IE 10% off if you buy 10 cases vs. one case, but it's still a limited discount. Also, grocery stores don't use the same margins, so a Publix marks it up 10%, whereas a beer store only may do 20%, full liquor stores does 25%, a bar does 30%, whatever. Everyone plays a different game based on their other sales and margins, but no one pays overly more through the distributor than anyone else, ever. Bars typically will get a better price since they're buying more quantity, especially on a limited beer.

 

Any barleywine in charlotte anywhere? NC anywhere?