Hunapocolypse 2014

I don't agree, not in most cases. But as in any case, the few ruin it for the many. Nobody is writing threads about the guy who just hooked them up with a great beer without asking for anything in return.... I had a great discussion with a very prominent person in the industry who feels that the direction of "the new breed" is going to chase all of the "true beer guys" out of the industry. Beer guys are awesome, and the reason I stay in an industry that doesn't really bring in the income I would like. In fact, I can almost triple my income easily by leaving the retail end. The problem is too many of the new guys are so entitled, and confused on what community really means. There are plenty of great new guys too. But it's hard not to focus on the bad ones.

 

F man, I actually thought about driving 6 hrs to attend HD. Big f'n bullet dodged.

 

I'd pay $53 to watch Ronda Rousey beat the shit out of 3,500 beer geeks one by one.

 

Not to mention, anyone calling anything near the Hunahpu bottle sales a "line" has never taken a geometry class.

Line - n. The shortest distance between two points.

Hunahpu's Triangle - n. The disorganized clusterfuck method of selling a limited release beer, known as Hunahpu, to participants that paid $53 for the opportunity to purchase a minimum of 3 said beers before the end of the day.

 

No, I did not.

But, I seriously wonder if that python had anything to do with the missing chihuahua from one of the other patrons.

 

Not to be the "Actually" girl, but....Actually, I did post that exact thing in the other Hunahpu thread. A bro just gave me a bottle of wild ale because it wasn't his style. I in turn let him pick something out of my cooler. There was PLENTY of coolness going on among the beer dudes. CCB underdelivered on the day, but good people were there in abundance and there ARE people who are talking about it.

 

Actually what I said was "Nobody is writing threads about the guy who just hooked them up with a great beer without asking for anything in return"
A mention in a thread, is not the same as a tread that is about it. And giving you something because it's "not his style" doesn't equate to what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is when a guy walks into my store, hands me a Pliny, HT, or some other great beer that he loves because he wants me to be able to enjoy it. This is not a pissing match, and the more people defend or justify things, the less I am interested. I throw stuff out there to make people think. I've been a craft beer store longer than most people on this site have been drinking beer. I've watched a lot of things change. I start with "IMO" for a reason. You can argue facts, but not opinions. It got people talking about that aspect, and off of the "CCB sucks" train. That is all. I am not saying that there is a lack of cool beer people around. I'm just saying there are too many hunters/traders/hoarders in the last 3 years, and that they make these special releases a whole lot less fun than they used to be. If you take it personal, I can't control that, but "IMO" those who do, are usually the ones guilty of the charge.

 

I saw that guy hanging out behind the sound crew for a while.

Ok, let's see. 3,500 general entrance tickets sold to El Cat members and the public. From what i've heard through the grapevine: An extra 1,500 (approx) tickets went out to locals, CCB's own beer events/dinners and the local muckity mucks (I could be wrong but have heard it from a source I trust). Then, you have all of the beer vendors that were offered six tickets each (easily another 1k of tickets) for their brew crews. That means we're up to what... 6k not even considering the scalped/fake/xerox tickets. I figured, at most, this was around another thousand people. A little short of last year's 9,000 crowd but still a shit ton of people.

They definitely didn't have the same number of hunahpu bottles as last year. With the DB huna and the other treatments this year, there was far less of the basic beer to go around. Last year, they had three bottle pickup lines with massive pallets of bottles just stacked floor to ceiling. This time, it was just two massive pallets in brewery #2 with a single pick up line.

I didn't expect the DB huna's and other El Cat extras to go on sale, so i'm not butthurt that I didn't get one. It would've been nice to know they were available so I could've tried to get a few, and better still if there was a one bottle each limit so they went a little further for everyone involved, but meh. They'll make more beer. I loved the offerings in El Catador the first go around and i'll be in it for version 2.0.

What I liked:

I liked that I had sense enough to get there at 9:30 am and get in by 10:00. I'm glad our friends got two tables under the tent near the band and we partied there all day. The food trucks were much better this time around and I got a massive sandwich that was just incredible. It was some sort of cheezy french dip with a medicine dropper of white sauce (horseradish) and one of a red vinegar based BBQ sauce.

Since we had 20+ people, a few of us would hold down the tables while the rest got in the big lines for the rare pours and we'd meet back at the table to share them. The only pour that I missed that I wanted to try was hunapoopoo. Everything else was great (DB, Huna's Ghost, the Toppling Goliath beers, BA Terrapins, PB&J, etc.). Shit, I even drank cider and belgian golden strongs from local brewers clubs.

We got our bottles at 12pm while the lines were short (six bottles of the regular) and I even got a CCB Teku glass. Yes, I did secure them in the car and went back in (that part I continue to get right). The bottle sharing under the tents was great. BA Abraxis, Dark Horizon #4, 110kt, Rhubarb Remix... I was blowing up my untapp'd all day long.

It was great chatting with Zeus, Keegan, Billy and Jay Lescher even though they were all busy as hell. Keegan liked my clone, the huna-boo-boo, and thought the treatment was spot on except for the cinnamon (faded out in my beer).

So, aside from the massive number of assholes (myself included) stinking up the place, yes I had a great time.

 

It seems every brewery goes through the same pains.

Follow Alesmith's lead: special release sold via Brown Paper Tickets. 3 month window to pick up.

No bullshit.

 

and the chatter about where the extra tickets came from are starting to emerge. And I'm still skeptical that the fakes were a very high number. If you look at ebay, there was less than 100 tickets sold in auctions, assume maybe a couple hundred more between CraigsList and Stubhub. So if you said 500 tickets were sold on the secondary market, even if 25% were fake (which would be really high) you're still looking at a small number. And even if you had some people mobilize quickly (after word is passed about the lack of ticket scanning?) and make copies, how many could that possibly be?

 

Founders also does a nice job with KBS. Tickets sold via Eventbrite, ticket must match name of person picking up, and you can pick up any time on "your day", one of 5 days. Also, one ticket per named person.

 

I didnt go this year, but i did go last year. i recall talking to some CCb staff about the (then) incredible/unexpectedly large turn-out and how CCB was making it big and they agreed that next year the event should be a ticketed one and defintly at at a park or fairgrounds or something.

I see they did try to ticket it. I applaud the effort. Obviously it didnt go so well. I think that point has by now been well-covered.

But the amazing thing is i personally got a case of Huna beyond the allocated bottles last year, and i know of people who got three cases. When i left at 5 pm there were dozens of cases left.
In fact there were still bottles for sale the NEXT MORNING.

So....


How in the world did they run out this year?
Were there really that many more people, so many that those with forged tickets more than made,up for the excess? or did they make less Huna?

Or were they selling more than the three beofre the allocated bottles were all picked up?

 

The reselling of bottles is a different issue entirely. That is not the reason that this event went to crap. Honestly, if people spent a lot of money to make a weekend of this event ...I can't say I really blame them for trying to get back some money. I personally wouldn't do it, but can't hate on anyone who had to deal with that line at the entrance yesterday.

 

I think it was discussed that there were much fewer bottles this year.

 

Well if i missed that earlier than i understand.

Maybe because of all of the treatments the base beer got used up?
It just seems the bottle counts for the "flagship special event beer" of any brewery seems to increase monotonically with time unless there's some kind of brewery disater. i cant recall hearing about a significant drop in bottle count for any special annual release several years after it was first made.

 

But... There are only 6 people that are female and in her weight class

 

I don't think she cares who she beats up.

 

If you are telling me that there was a counterfeit ticket operation that manufactured and sold thousands of fraudulent tickets, then CCB needs to get Tampa PD involved in an investigation to figure out who was behind it. That sort of fraud would constitute a first degree felony, and the fraudsters would have caused immense harm to CCB's brand and business.

 

It was a clusterfuck for sure. At least they are refunding.
I'm worried about how today at the tasting room went more than the festival itself.
Maybe they should take a break and figure shit out before setting up a huna day again.

 

yeah, you'd think that many secondary market tickets would have drawn someones attention. And I also highly doubt that there was that many people that decided to show up without tickets and try to sneak in.

Which comes back to the more likely answer, CCB sold or gave away multiple 1000's of extra tickets. Which a few people in this thread have already claimed to have heard from sources.