Bourbon County 2017

So the question now is: Will the clusterfuck that was yesterday (according to this thread; I managed to get sick on Thanksgiving so missed all BF activities) be furthered magnified by secondary drops of all variants (at Binny's?), or was this most people's only shot outside Whole Foods next week?

 

I don’t really know the logistics about secondary drops, but if binnys was sitting on excess stock yesterday and didn’t exhaust it given how much of a mess it was...that’s not good in my opinion.

Obviously it’s clear they hold stuff back for vintage releases next year but if they randomly just put out variants on a Tuesday afternoon in December I’d think that’s poor form due to yesterday’s problems.

 

Went into a store today and saw that they were selling Northwoods for $40, unbelievable

 

So... outside of Chicagoland, did anywhere OTHER than BloNo get a solid drop of variants?

I ended my day with a ton of Northwoods, Coffee, and BW.. Was only able to snag 2 Reserve, though. A good friend of mine in Champaign said it was a wasteland down there, which is surprising. Nothing but Regular and BW (which, incidentally, was the one, other than Reserve, that was hard to come by in BloNo)

 

It's high that's for sure but I don't think it's unbelievable. Someone will eventually by it

 

It’s not Binny’s that has the excess. GI or the distributor does and they give Binny’s more in mid to late December. It’s glorious.

I don’t think you’re going to get much sympathy for ONLY getting 2 Reserve. That was the hardest one to get around the city. It sounds like you got an amazing haul if you got a ton of NW and Coffee.

 

After they saw the pallet with only regular, lots of bummed out folks at our Jewel who thought they were getting Prop and Barleywine. It was "confirmed" not only by Jewel's site but by the customer support in the comments section.

 

New member but I swear I used to have an account. Who knows what email or name it was under though.

I missed all the fun yesterday morning. Luckily I live far enough from LP that I didn’t consider. I was busy in the morning and ended up stopping by a shop in the NW burbs and getting some Regular and BW.

I just missed some variants this morning at another shop. I’m really hoping to find a Coffee, but I always strike out.

The hunt continues, or the hope for a 2nd drop in a few weeks

 

Fair but this was the least important part of my point.

 

Respectfully, it seems like you aren’t reading what people are writing here. It’s not about wanting to pay more for beer, it’s about taking away the price gap between retail and fair market value (secondary) combined with releasing it first come first serve, which causes an element of “work for your beer” and brings all kinds of seediness to it.

 

Wasn't really looking for sympathy, just illustrating that it was hard to get down here too.

Far more interested in what other areas got because it sure seemed like everyone I talked to around the State struck out.

Not sure if it's because we share the same distributor as Chi or what.

 

Yeah. Got to Fulton at like 2:30. Both Prop and Reserve we’re gone. And why in the hell did they not have them in kegs?

 

I love reading this and living vicariously through you all.

If it's any consolation, in Mid-Michigan we haven't even seen coffee in years. And this year we didn't even get barleywine.

I had a 3 hour round-trip drive and 3 hour wait for a midnight release (got 2 stout and NW) And hunted for another three hours in the morning and pulled 6 more regular from around 12-15 shops.

Sorry, if I missed it, but any idea what the approximate number of vintage allocations were at LP?

 

Sure, but I think we all need to come to terms with the fact that pricing beers at a point where they sell out instantly isn't the best strategy.

Again, this is exactly my point. The beer doesn't need any more hype and there are clearly WAY too many customers.

 

Well, I messaged the Binny's comment email and got a response already... what I expected.

" Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. The main theme I'm hearing is that we should spread our allocation out to more locations. Unfortunately, without big the event, we wouldn't get the big allocation. We're grateful that we have the relationship (and proximity) with Goose Island that allows us to host an event like this, and it is the big event that gets us the allocation. Our beer buyers work effortlessly to get as much beer as possible to all our stores, which is why we also saw thousands of happy customers across our other locations. "

They responded to my point about the other locations getting screwed with joke allotments (got the response I expected, GI made them do it for publicity, figured) but did not touch base on the problems that occurred during the LP event (no staff governing the line, lack of rule enforcement, lack of communication, slow checkout process, etc).

 

Significant problems aside, a ticketed release is exclusionary in a way that Goose Island just won’t want.

 

Yes, some are literally asking that prices be raised so getting the beer is “easier” for them. There are easier ways to get the beer in peoples hands, many breweries have figured it out. As far as secondary, that is between the buyer and seller but should have no bearing on what EVERYONE is charged.

 

I know it was the least of your concerns, I was just trying to provide some insight. I didn’t want people that got bumped out of the 500 range to think they missed out on any crazy vintages that’s all.

 

Can anyone else still not stand the new format/labels/bottles? The old packaging was just so well designed and elegant, it made seeing the beer almost exciting in itself. The new bottles and labels are just terrible.

 

Because I have an economics degree. At current retail prices, people are willing to buy MUCH more beer than they have available to sell. Assuming Goose is making as much as they can, the only rational solution is raising prices.