Hazel's Nuts

What was your arrival time to be #125?

 

I got there about 7:30AM. Give or take a few minutes.

 

Yeah, @archiebunkerjr was directly in front of me in line. I agree that arriving around 7:30 just barely beat the cutoff. Oddside definitely needs to handle the line situation earlier. I stayed off somewhere in the 125-130 region but I highly doubt I ended up there in the end.

Put a smaller limit on the beer and most people will be happy. I think it still would have sold out with a 2 case limit.

 

This is the world we live in: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/ft-hazels-nuts-iso-vr.383708/

I have been guilty of this same sort of thing, but usually only because I accidentally buy too much beer (who knew I didn't actually want a case of Rum barrel 4elf?).

Founders only does 3 4-packs of KBS per person. I think 5 cases per person is a little much, but I understand the desire to sell the beer out as fast as possible. There must be a happy medium.

 

The line must have really gotten out of hand. If you were really 125th(ish) to start, almost everyone in front of you would have had to taken the full allotment.

Agree that 2 cases per person is plenty.

 

∆ agree. OddSide if you're listening make it 2 cases next time. That is all. Sorry to those of you who missed out. I'll ask my Grandma and Grandpa and Brother and sister if they can spare one of their 5 cases...

 

Line cutters. I can tell you the guy behind me had his wife cut in line at the hipster release after his wife went and got a bourbon county allotment at Costco. Hipster was no limits so it's possible she was just tagging along. I was too far away from the cash register to hear if they got two four packs of hazel, the only limit that day.

They were actually really cool people and even bought me a beer while we were waiting in line.

Anyway, I could tell it was way too easy to cut in line at Odd Side.

 

I don't think the line got out of hand. I thought it was similar to the Hipster release. But you are right, most people in front of us walked out with the full 5 cases of Hazel's. I can count on one hand the number of people walking out with just a case or two that they carried on their own.

I saw this coming and I think many of us did. This thread had close to 2,000 hits last night and it's over 4,000 now. I knew a lot of people were going to take the max allocation after watching all the large Hipster orders leaving Oddside on Black Friday. The 600 cases of Hazel's just wasn't going to last very long.

 

For what's it worth, I didn't see any line cutting today at Oddside. If it happened, it didn't happen very much.

 

Welp, looks like I'm putting up an IP ISO later tonight. Hopefully one of the lucky well planned 125 likes a nice spread...

 

2 case limits and no one in line would have been shut out. That seems like a perfectly reasonable limit to me. I definitely did not expect to see one dolly after another walk out with 5 cases otherwise I would not have made the drive from detroit and stood in line for 3+ hours. If they don't implement lower case limits next time I will definitely not attend another release.

 

I was surprised at the amount of people who were maxing their Hazel's allotment. Social. Media is ruining our (what used to be) nice relaxing hobby.

 

Yes, they would have. More than 300 people showed up for the release.

I don't want to be a dick, but dude, you knew the limit was 5 cases, why would you not expect this??

 

Because there was no limit for hipster or mayan mocha releases and very few people were loading up anything close to 5 cases per person. Nobody expected the majority of people to walk off with full allotments. I showed up about 10am. By the time they announced they were running low and then out of hazel's I was probably 20 from the door with maybe another 30 behind me. If it was a 2 case limit they would have made it through the line.

 

I saw people at the BBIMM and Hipster release taking 10-20 cases at a time. One guy bought 27 cases of Hipster.

 

I understand that but that wasn'tthe majority. Most were walking off with 1-2 in hand. I don't think anyone expected nearly everyone in line to take a full allocation. I sure as hell did not. I was only hoping to buy a case for myself.

 

Bottom line, the Brewery is most concerned about selling out of their product on the release day for a number of reasons, and I have zero issue with that. That being said, if you have, lets say 600 cases of a highly sought after beer, and 300+ people are there before you open and you set the limit at 5 cases, then you are just encouraging the hoarders to show up super early and get the max and you are screwing over everyone else. There is actually a benefit to the brewery to sell this beer to more people, not less people, I mean all they have done is alienate people who showed up and got shut out, right?

My brother showed up later, was going to buy Hazel, and a bunch of the other bottles, but when the line was still 150+ deep and he found out Hazel was gone, he just left. That is bad for the brewery he would have spent $100+ on the Non Hazel's nuts beers, but he left because he wasn't going to wait in line for hours for the other beers. The brewery missed out on those sales, I bet they will have lots of non-Hazel's Nuts bottles left over today, and that is not ideal for them.

I know you Can't please everyone, but my goodness, Oddsides is clueless with these releases. "We had no idea that this beer would be this popular" just doesn't cut it anymore. Hire one person who has a pulse on Craft beer demand and save yourself all the negative publicity.

 

I didn't expect this to go that quickly, based on showing up at 11 AM for the Hipster Brunch release, which had no limits - and walking out at 1 PM with everything I came for (heard it lasted anywhere from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM IIRC). I got there about an hour later than planned (9:45 A.M.), and knew about 15 minutes in it wasn't looking good. Rather than say fuck it, I hung out in line for a few hours, met a couple great guys (and women), and had a pretty good time (even knowing the chances of getting the case I came for weren't looking good...at all).

FWIW, the line started when Odd Side Ales closed last night/this morning. Some guys who got there at 3:30 AM said they were like #12 in line...The bigger issue IMO was cutting. People just showing up and others allowing it to happen. I saw some pretty sad shit - 2 guys behind me had 4 packs given to them (FREE). 30 minutes later they disappear...only to walk by a few minutes later with a case each. Awesome beer karma, followed by what appeared to be a complete douche canoe move.

*the line would move great for 10 minutes and then just stop for a few minutes, yet beer was still getting wheeled out the door...so I can only assume that the line was getting longer (in front of us) by these stops.

Sure enough, about noon it was clear that it was time to give up hope. At that point I said fuck it and enjoyed a Hazel's on draft with my Wife and some friends (Wife was able to get a table which was cool). Hung out for a few hours, had a good time, and left with the understanding (per staff at Odd Side Ales) that things WILL be done differently in the future (see: something along the lines of ticketed and/or off site releases and tighter limits).

While I definitely saw this going quickly, I did NOT anticipate that a good 60-70% of those in line walked out with limits. Odd Side Ales has been around 6 years, and just recently (I guess since 2014 Hipster most likely) started getting the hype (and frankly... the RECOGNITION) that many locals already knew about. In hindsight, a 5 case limit was likely too high, but on that same note, a 2 case limit may be too high as well based on 800 cases available - as many who got there by 11 would've still likely missed out).

This is just my take on the release, and again, in summary, I had a great time. Keep up the good work guys, it was nice to meet you @joshflashgordon. I'm confident you guys will learn from this (which I'm not upset at OSA for missing out; I'm upset at myself for not getting there soon enough), and the next release will be much more enjoyable for more folks. You're never going to keep everybody happy, unfortunately, as there are folks who bitched about the Hipster Brunch release because they couldn't make it during the 6-8 hour release window (or find somebody who could pick some up for them...)

Lighten up guys, it's just beer .

Edit: Contrary to what some are stating, the majority of the people I witnessed walking out had 4-5 cases of Hazel's...And MOST I talked to said they were picking up for friends. Many I spoke with hadn't even tried the beer before yet it has THAT much demand you say ?

Many people who realized the situation were very generous and willing to help some in line out.

Bottom line, if you wanted some of this they tried making it right on some level to get you crowlers/growlers. For those just wanting to try this (or bring to share with some buddies), you had that option as well. It's more than a lot of other places would do.... It sounds like those with the biggest complaints are also the ones who expected to get a trophy in Little League for being on the team that went 0-16.

 

Thank you. At the very least, if you can look outside and tell that there are more bodies than allocations at open, reduce the limit. Side project, along with a lot of other breweries determine their allotments based on turnout prior to open so as not to send 150+ people home dissapointes.

 

last thing I'll say, we all saw people walking out with 5, 10, 15, 27 cases of Hipster Brunch on Black Friday, and people are really surprised that the majority of people got 5 cases of Hazel?? This is the sad world we live in, but it is the reality of really good Beer. People are buying for themselves, their families, their friends, their trading partners, their neighbors, etc. Hipster and Hazel's nuts are WORLD CLASS BEERS, the demand for them is never going down.