Crooked Stave 2014 Cellar Reserve

I tend to see it as a plot. No big company launches anything without research. If they see people will pay upwards of $20 on a beer, then that's good fodder for research. Especially if CS et al increase their prices to be *more* even to ACG. I can see ACG sours staying the way they are, and other branches (Tenth & Blake, Blue Moon....) launching cheaper versions and those are the products that can harm craft

Again...paranoid.

 

Agreed, with a caveat. While Origins lasted on my shelf for about 12hrs, the others sit. I'm not trying to admonish Chad or the plan, just providing observations. And with a price increase, those beers will sit longer. Add that to the limited shelf space and increasing number of breweries/beers (including those CS distributes), and a problem may exist. That would seem to go against the "introduce more people to Brettanomyces and barrel-aged beers" thing.
With that said, I will continue to guzzle CS like milk from....a beer bottle??

 

Try this... put all but 2 in the back and add a shelf tag with the batch number.

 

Agreed. I think the cheaper options are more of a threat to craft. Especially the 6 to 12 pack purchase of "something nice".

 

Really, let's be honest, the #1 complaint is my dollar doesn't go as far and it means less sour beer for me. That is enough reason to be upset. This price increase is about 25% across the board. Now if inflation was 0% and I got a 25% raise this year, and I didn't have to pay more $ on my medical plan because of Obamacare. I wouldn't care.

And the whole bit about storage costs? Pssh. Give a stricter deadline and if it's not picked up by then, sell it to general public or offer up extra extras to members that pick it up. Done. Don't pass (or rather try to recoup) "unanticipated" costs to the consumer, instead fix the process so it doesn't happen again. (which it sounds like they're doing, while at the same time trying to recoup).... although it's a shame that members/trustees haven't picked up yet, so in a sense it makes sense to pass that cost back onto the members.

And just because the memberships will sell out, and people will still buy the beer doesn't make our concerns less important.

 

And if those damn old people living in the world didn't want Social Security or public services or schooling for their children you could probably afford it then too. What on earth does Obamacare specifically have to do with Crooked Stave, besides it being another "tax" on your income?

I will stand next to you and critique and question the validity of the price increase and their sparse explanations. But lets try and keep it on topic. We really don't need to turn this into a political debate.

 

Not a bad idea. I did have one Vieille left on the shelf for 2 months. Still I don't think the above-average-not-quite-so-geeky beer drinkers care, or know, about batch #s. I'll give it a try, though

 

It was a joke, I had to make it off-topic because I knew I was ranting.

 

Then touche my good man. Touche.

But all-in-all like I said, I am sort of put off by the timeliness of the cost increase e-mail. I had no reservations about renewing for another year. But even though I'm pretty sure it was just a failure of Business 101 by a bunch of young, inexperienced people still trying to figure out how to best run their business...I can't help but at least entertain that notion that their was some intent on "gaming" people like myself.

But I'm a slave to those sours.

 

So still no date on when this will open to the public to purchase for 2014?

 

Haven't heard of one yet.

 

My best guess would be Nov. 14th. Or I would at least recommend refreshing pages feverishly looking for information then, as current member re-ups end on the 13th.

 

Anyone have any of this lottery stuff details?

 

You will have from 12:00pm MST Tuesday, November 5th to 12:00pm Tuesday, November 12th to register viaEventBrite (https://2014cellarreservelottery.eventbrite.com). At EventBrite, you will enter your first and last name, as well as your email address. Anyone registering his/her name MORE THAN ONCE will be removed from the lottery.

 

On a related note, this Saturday's the final bottle pick up and member's party. 11AM 'til 4PM at the Barrel Cellar (not the source).
Me and my other half will be there unless the weather is crazy or someone wipes us out in those dreaded traffic circles.

 

Those traffic circles are an improvement over those damn lights. People just don't know how they are suppose to work.

 

They certainly are on paper, but when nobody has any idea what to do that's out the window. Having traffic circles in areas like that is like replacing forks with chop sticks at Applebees.

 

I like just pegging the gas pedal and swerving past all the fools Mario Cart style. Wish I had a gopro to capture stills of all their faces.

 

Any out-of-stater need a trustee? Lemme know...

 

Assuming that you buy an extra 2 bottles per allocation @ $12.75 each (20 extra bottles total), the cost of the entire deal becomes ~$633 versus $504 last year. That's a ~$130 price increase, or about 25% in one year.

From what I gathered from the email, the justification of the price increase is due to higher costs of doing business without having the accompanying revenue to support it. That must be scary for them - I fear for the future of any business whose costs escalate 25% annually.