Buying privilege. Come on, man.

I don't think this is right either. I have heard of some drink specials in bars being illegal because of the amount of free alcohol involved. That might be what you're talking about. In any case your dog is cute as hell. That's really all I wanted to say. Cheers!

 

Seriously, fuck places that do this. Fuck them right in the face. Never ever will I succumb to the "you need to buy Shitty Shelf Turd A in order to buy limited release beer B" model.

 

If I ever owned a brewery with some big, sought-after beer and I found out about a store pulling crap like this with my stuff, I'd find the people responsible and deck them.

...or, y'know, just forbid them from selling my product anymore. Whichever doesn't get me arrested.

 

Bestway isn't in an affluent neighborhood, but they get a sizable BC allocation. They draw people in, so at least here it looks like sales and not demographics are huge. I can't see this being a big 312 area or a GI IPA area either. So I'm guessing at least in this area the distributor is looking to stack up his best customers. Just my opinion.

 

While Im not a huge fan of this practice I understand why shops do it.... not only for the sales but to hopefully get a larger BC allotment the following year.

 

Owner is a beer geek, sucks he is taking profiteering to the extreme.

 

This scenario really exposes what people think of GI's line-up. If a store did this for one of my favorite breweries I'd think it was sleazy but I'd probably buy that beer anyways; so it might not be a big deal. In GI's case, you have to pay for their mediocre core beer you'd probably never buy to get some overhyped special release.

 

That fits in the 'great, guess I'll take my business elsewhere' category.

 

Shop near me finally got their BC allotment... they are releasing it Christmas Eve and Rare is priced at $100/bottle with standard running $20/bottle. Im absolutely disgusted.

 

In a many cases the brewery reps are actually the ones building the allocations. They'll look at "case equivalents" (1 1/2bbl is equal to 6.8 CEs) sold in the last year and build their allocations around that. They'll also look at the demographics or the customers and the type of product sold and adjust accordingly.

For example, a place like Old Chicago may have GI IPA on tap all year, but no one there other than the beer buyer will actually pay for bottles of BCBS, so they'll only get a case or two. Meanwhile, there could be a specialty shop that sells lots of Matilda and Sisters, but can't move the main line stuff, and they'll get more cases because the AB/GI rep knows their customers will appreciate it. Despite mostly being tied to sales, it sometimes comes down to adjusting allocations in order to make sure that the right beer ends up in the right place.

My allocations of Abyss are roughly tied to how much Deschutes product I sell over the course of the year. My allocations of Parabola, Sucaba, and Anniversary are tied to how much FSW stuff I sell the rest of the year. I had a few other examples in mind when I quoted this post and have since forgotten them, but the point is that GI is far from the only brewery to tie the availability of their special beers to sales of their year round stuff.

Honestly, it makes perfect sense. Why let someone cherry pick and take the guaranteed sellers when they don't support your brand the rest of the year?

Ha. Tell that to the crappy convenience stores in the poorer suburbs of Portland that get BCBS, Abyss, Firestone "box beers", and other fancy things.

 

Agreed. Those cases would seem to be an illustration of the distributor delegating the work to the brewery reps and while the distributor isn't likely to muck around with that allocation, they often do have the ability to tweak it if they feel the rep has missed something, etc.

 

So is $65, the suggested retail price

 

Once a store screws me over, l don't go back. Like super-mega price-gougers Cask 'n, Flask, where the price goes up every time someone buys a bottle!

 

@drtth and @lester619 , I may have mistaken that with Sams/Costco Memberships and their Liquor Store Access. (Because of a law that prohibits the sale of alcohol through members-only arrangements)

 

Their selection of rarities is like none I've seen in a while. From what I understand, most is from the owners' stash & travels, then resold at a mark up. Lunardi's in Belmont is flooded with BCBS right now.

 

Never happens in our distribution territory. I'd love to walk into a crappy convenience store to purchase The Abyss and Firestone "box beers." I guess each territory is different. I was speaking from the experience of the distributor I work at.