FW Invitational 2014

Are there typically bottles for purchase at the event, or no?

 

No.

 

Uh...no

 

Just got 2 tickets and something came up so I'm selling them! BM me!

 

I'm going to assume the other guy was fuckin around based on his apropos user name.

 

Looking forward to reading what everyone thought about today's event.

 

Early birds....give us peasants a heads up if anybody has special bottles they are pourin.(something not on the list...ala dbh, etc)

 

BA Vietnamese Speedway and BA Cellarman Saison were my favorites. Missed out on Cigar City and didn't bother with Russian River. The food was absolutely amazing. What a fantastic event

 

Wow, everyone must have had a blast. No comments on how the event went yet huh? Damn, I wish I would have made it!

 

Wish I could have made it. Makin it next for sure

 

Early riser here.

Event went off with out a hitch as far as I could tell. My group rented a wedding shuttle and came up from SLO the morning of. We got to the line at about 11:57. Waited maybe 10-15 minutes to enter and get glasses (last year we were 1hr early and that waiting pen almost killed us all). Thankfully the temps stayed in the mid 80s all day so handling all those big stouts was much easier than expected. I didn't really see the one monster line a la preveous years but the bigger ones were at Bruery, Cigar City, Founders and Russian river. All of them could be navigated in about 10-15 mins and were typically shorter after the first hour or two. I happened to be at Russian River near the time they cracked 2 9-Litre Temptation bottles from 2009. That was the only place things got a little crazy (people over crowding, breaking line and reaching over).

As far as tasting goes, I got pretty much everything on my list and never really waited more than 5-10mins at any time (with runners bringing back other tastes in the middle). Coming out from OC we shot for the midwest/east stuff that we don't see distribution for and tried the Huna, Bells BA Cherry stout and KBS pretty early, all excellent. Black Tuesday + pistachio and vanilla was quite good. Rocked Surly late and had a couple pours of darkness and pentagram with no line which were also pretty killer. I would say those 4-5 were the top but all sit pretty close in terms of Best in Show.

*I think it goes down as a good thing for me but I was kinda bummed to find out there were Hoarders pours (no line from the side of the booth) of Winefication and Melange 9 from a guy in front of us in line while waiting for the BT+pv. He laughed and said "I'm not even a member, I just walked up and said so and they gave me two pours." However I promptly walked up, flashed my gold card and got a pour of each to share with my group in line. Had both before, but Wineification is still amazing. So I was happy to get some 'secret stuff' so that was cool.

Amazing event as always; Can't wait for next year.

 

The event was awesome and we got to try a bunch of great beers. That being said, the VIP tickets were a scam. You got in an hour early but that didn't matter all that much since many of the breweries weren't tapping their "rare" beer till 2pm. One of our first stops was to TAPS to try Remy's Pappy only to be told it wasn't tapping till 2pm. Then we watched as a guy with a lanyard pass was served a healthy pour of it. That didn't make us feel very "VIP".

The swag bag can only be described as laughable. It really feels like an afterthought. It did include a festival t-shirt but other than that it was a non-functional cooler bag (zipper doesn't actually go end to end, so it doesn't close) with the logo for High Street Logistics and the festival logo, a koozie with the High Street Logistics Logo (No FW logo anywhere), a shaker pint w. the Marine Corps Logistics Foundation Logo (No FW logo anywhere), and a bottle opener from Boetlerbeercup.com (No FW logo anywhere). It is as if they asked the sponsors if they had any crappy swag, laying around, that they wanted to get rid of. They could have tossed the t-shirt, a FW glass, and a bottle of the collab beer in a bag and still had nearly 50% of our money to give to charity. I think, when they advertised a bag of swag being included in the price, most people thought it would be FW swag or at LEAST related to the festival. Hell, they could've gathered up some of the stickers, buttons, and coasters the breweries brought and it would've been better than what we received.

Had they advertised a VIP package that included a t-shirt and early entry but with only a limited menu I sure as hell wouldn't have paid nearly triple the GA price. I would suggest avoiding VIP tickets, if sold in the future, at all costs.

 

Ive been to every Invitational so far, and as great and enjoyable as yesterday was, it was quite frustrating. Most of the exciting things to try, like Rum Barrel Victory at Sea, Remy Pappy, etc, that were listed as what they were pouring, were not available till certain times, and only had a limited amount. Some stood in line waiting to try these only to get to the front and be told "sorry we're not pouring that till later". Some of the reps for the breweries were quite rude and ignored people standing right at the front (TAPS I'm looking at you). Some places closed up shop at 2-2:30pm, which sucked for the people that didnt show up right at 12noon. Lagunitas was pouring Pilsner all day, wtf?
I hate to be that guy complaining about an awesome event, but I really thing FW needs to set some proper guidelines for the breweries to follow. Despite my complaints, it was a great day. Perfect weather, great food, great crowd. Got to sample 61 beers, most of which were fantastic, as there were a few duds that seemed like the brewery just wanted to get rid of it. Great event, but I do hope FW makes some adjustments for next year.

 

Wow 61 samples! I'll admit it, i'm jealous lol.

 

Great event and while others have brought up some valid issues that could be improved, it's still one of the best run beer events around and a ton of fun, especially when the weathr is more cooperative. Barring a significant price increase and/or major format change, I'll definitely be back next year. Some assorted thoughts:

1) The special tappings at specific times is frustrating, as others already mentioned - had those been made clear ahead of time, it would've saved some time in lines. I went to Triple Rock early on to try Cellarman and BA Cellarman only to be told they would be tapped later. Nothing against their English Bitter and pale ale - good beers - but I would've circled back to those later in the day since they weren't high on my list. I knew I was going to end up missing certain beers here and there, but being able to plan ahead rather than figure out when things were going to start flowing was annoying. I can especially see how that would suck for VIP ticket holders - sure, an extra hour of no lines would be nice, but that's a big price differential for not even having all beers available.

2) The lines were more balanced this year, as I think people realized that waiting 30 minutes for one beer is a waste of time with so much good stuff available. Also, putting FFF and The Bruery back in a corner helped avoid major traffic jams in the middle of the fest. That said, FFF cleared out pretty well and around 3 PM, my friend and I were able to walk right up and have BA Blot out the Sun and Zombie Dust. Same for Founders, walked right up for some KBS later in the day.

3) I'm glad someone told me about Parabajava at the Intelligentsia booth, because it may have been my beer of the fest. Revolution's Straight Jacket was also fantastic as were several others (Jester King, Garage Project, and Beachwood all killed it), but I had five or six pours of Parabajava near the end of the fest since it was pouring freely with only a few people in line.

4) The collab beer was pretty mediocre and it was my first beer of the day, so my palate wasn't trashed when judging it. I'm not a big fan of hoppier barleywines to begin with, but nothing really stood out about it and viewed through the lens of being a $20 bottle compared to beers like Sucaba and Parabola at $16, it just doesn't stack up. I'm curious to hear how it is out of the bottle, but the taster gave me no desire to wait around this morning to pick up bottles.

 

No Barrel Aged Dark Lord + scheduled pouring times turning into big lines + VIP tickets costing 3x General Admission to only have an extra hour to drink the same beer as everyone else?


yikes.

 

Did they sell more tickets this year than past years? Or perhaps it was that with no BA Huna and BA DL, people just migrated to the other lines. Maybe I jinxed myself in saying how easy Citra was to get last year cause there was always a line for the big name brewers.

Not much of an isse when you're just cruising by those not-so-hyped breweries and they were a lot cooler to talk to. But Kern did knock it out with that white IPA. seriously was great times. But I wonder if it's just going to get more packed each year if they're inching more and more people in.

And as for the VIP stuff. What did you think? You'd be knocking back tick after tick of those oh so rare whales? I think the forced and stupidly timed "rare releases" had to happen when you introduce a trump card like the one hour early deal. Otherwise you'll have the same handful of drinkers knocking back a bomber's worth of those beers each.

I do wish that the timed released shit didn't have to happen. That's one of the biggest annoyances that the Bruery did last year. As it takes away from the carefree atmosphere of just cruising by booths to suddenly having to keep accounting of all these very close to, if not the same time tap releases of stuff that was listed as was going to be pouring.

 

Did anyone catch that RS/HS members could walk up to the side of the Bruery tent and grab pours of Wineification and Melange 9? (I did...) It certainly did seem to be more people this year (SLO Tribune's website story said over 3000). The weather definitely cooperated this year and the big guns were much better spread out so the long lines didn't converge too bad. My highlight pours were Wineification, TAPS Remy Oh La La, BA Vietnamese Speedway, and Bell's Cherry Stout. I actually got to try a lot of the food this year and was not disappointed. I'm sure I saw quite a few if you without knowing you and hope your experiences were as good as mine were. Thus starts the countdown to Black Friday 2014 when we can buy tickets to next year's festival!

 

I was VIP and while the timed tappings were a bit frustrating, I liked that I could cruise through and hit the places I knew would have lines once general admission folks were in. Was it worth $200? Probably not. But I'm not really that upset given how much beer I was able to try.

 

Besides, it wasn't about ticking all them ticks, the $200 is going towards the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

Where as all us other drunks were just tossing into the pot to get those wagons fixed or some shit. Hell, with as much fun as I had this weekend, I wouldn't give a shit if they just flat out said that it would be going towards making a new bed made out of cash for both the lion and the bear.

Good times.