Changes at Jester King tasting room.

I am going to take a wild guess and say
Since it a tasting room not a drinking room they want you to taste not drink.
I could be way off. Maybe the fine people in the drink, er, tasting room could have answered this?

 

That's slightly disappointing. My last visit I went with double pours of Mad Meg, as it was my first experience with it and loved it. I can see this new rule being more acceptable if it was a free tasting/tour , but if you are ponying up $10 you should have some leeway as to how you want to use your 6 pours.

 

Your paying $7 for the glass and $3 for the beer. Bs Texas laws force you to buy the glass so $3 for the beer is really not too bad. While I agree that I have no desire to drink la petite and little desire for a couple of the others I'm not too disappointed about restrictions. Just work it out with your wife or the lightweight in your group to drink the better beers off of their card. The only bummer for me was to see the employees with a full pour and to be stuck with a small sample. My sample didn't make it through the tour. Maybe their could be a $15 entry fee or something to give you the golden wristband to get whatever pours you want. I realize that $3 for 6 6oz pours of boxers isn't quite fair to them.

Are we going to see sour black metal in bottles? I didn't see any boxed up at the tour recently.

 

Sorry... according to Texas law you are paying $10 for the glass. You can't charge for beer.

 

You're right. It was a late night post. They can't charge different amounts for one sample of each or mix and match whatever you want. I think independence does something similar where you pay to get in(which gets you a few pours in a small cup) or you can buy up and get your pours out of a pint glass. Jester kings thing is different though... They could just charge more for everybody to get in and give pours of whatever you want but then people would start to bitch about the cost going up.

 

My guess would be that they were giving away a hell of a lot of some beers, and very little of others, and maybe the most popular ones were also the most expensive ones, so there was some need to balance the playing field and give away a bit more Petit and a bit less of some other stuff.

Makes total sense from an economic perspective, but not from a tasting perspective if there are some of their beers you don't like. And there are some of their beers I dont like, so this will likely keep me away more often (too bad, because I almost have a complete set of JK glassware. )

 

The reason was b/c people were going there and getting full pours of their more limited beers. They want everyone to be able to enjoy them so they changed their rules to limit that. It's a tasting room so they also want people to taste all of their beers. the $10 charge is $7 for the glass and $3 to park and use the grounds, the beer is technically and legally free. I don't really know why people are complaining since there is nothing that says they have to do this every weekend. It's their way of sharing their beers with everyone and giving us a cool place to hangout.

 

frankly, i think its kind of lame..

i have never been to a tasting room and not been able to choose what i want to drink..

 

Agreed. I want to "taste" the beers I choose. I have already "tasted" every JK beer, and know which ones I like and which ones I don't. So basically I'm now going to be forced to drink beer I don't want, or leave "tastes" on the table, unused.

The reality is that we all have styles we don't like - I dont like IPA's and hoppy beers, so I'm not going to drink Noble King. Not that its not a good beer - just not a style I enjoy. I dont know of any other tasting room that requires you to drink 1 taste of all the beers, without choice.

 

once endeavour became a year-round beer, saint arnold began offering it at their tours, but it "costs" two tokens instead of the one. perhaps JK could group their offerings into different tiers and the top tier pours are equivalent to two pours of something else.

 

No one is forcing you to drink anything. If they have 3 beers you like and 3 you don't like then only drink those 3 and lose 3 pours. Honestly no one is forcing you to go. I went to allagash's tour a month ago and they had 4 beers for you to try and you couldn't choose which ones you wanted. People are trying to make it seem like they being treated poorly by JK b/c they are forced to drink beers they don't like. I just don't see why this is a big deal.

 

You don't see an issue with being asked to pay and then being forced to drink beer you don't like? Well, you must be everyone's favorite customer, then, if you are so willing to pay for things you don't like.

No, they're not forcing me to drink anything. I have gone to JK at least a dozen times, all the way from Round Rock (about a 45 minute drive each way), because I want to support them, despite the obvious fact that I can just buy their beer at the store and don't need to go there to drink it. But I'm not going to pay the same $10 to only drink 3 samples I like while others are paying $10 to drink 6 samples. Totally my choice, but economically it no longer makes any sense for me to drive all the way out there to be forced to drink beer I don't want or to get shorted on tastes. My choice.

 

I would see this method being applicable to someone like me who hasn't been to JK, and would like to taste some of the Brewery Only releases. But I feel like I wouldn't want to go back after the first time, if I only found 3 of the styles appealing. If JK focus is towards new craft drinkers this is great, but it seems to be punishing those who have supported them by going out to the brewery multiple times in the past year.

 

Karbach does something similar. I think its 1 "premium" token and 3 regular. Rodeo Clown and some of their one-offs require a premium token.

 

My guess is that they would lose money when they had certain beers on, like the weasel rodeo and whiskey rodeo. When you use coffee that costs $35/lb and $200/lb, the cost on those beers is high. Rather than raise their prices overall, they chose to spread the samples out amongst all the beers. While it's not a perfect scenario, maybe they'll offer something like Karbach and St. Arnold where they use tokens, and the more expensive beers use more tokens.

Cheers,
Chad

 

Man, wouldn't this all be a lot easier if we could be like most other states and, like, you know, just pay the appropriate price for the beer we want at the brewery?

 

Amen.

I would guess that inventory for tours could be difficult to manage if everyone wanted the same 2-3 beers and JK is in part trying to make sure late arrivals have a chance to try all their weekly offerings. Imagine someone coming to the tour from out of town missing a chance to try Boxers or Weasel because others got their earlier and guzzled it all down. Some may point to the 'early bird gets the worm' (an all too common BA syndrome best saved for the truck chasing releases), but in my opinion is the wrong vibe to have created for a brewery tour.

Just wondering about process here, but can you purchase additional tasting cards, err....tasting glasses?

 

This is the explanation we were told a few weeks ago. It makes sense to me.