Modern Times cans

I love that you can completely figure out where these cans will be if you live in San Diego.

 

Odd. Kern river specifically state on their website which stores in Bakersfield, tehachapi and kernville carry their beers. Is this really an ABC rule?

 

New Belgium and many other large craft brewers have a "beer finder" to point you to specific shops.

 

The ABC bullshit "we can't tell you where to buy our beer unless you ask first" I have heard about from multiple brewery owners. Hopefully Jacob can let us know WTF that is about. Perhaps it is a 3-tier law where they can't favor a retailer or promote a specific retailer or something.

 

It's definitely a law but pretty much no one follows it. Just look at any breweries facebook page and you can see them post this information.

 

The law is old, and the amendment to the law states that a brewery may give you information if you ask for it, but they cannot just provide it.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_2301-2350/ab_2349_bill_20120919_chaptered.html

Here's the fun part about what we can and cannot tell you, which basically says I can tell you if you ask, but I cannot tell you prices or anything else about the business. Just that they have the product. This is an easing of the previous law which was much more strict.
25500.1. (a) The listing of the names, addresses, telephone
numbers, email addresses, or Internet Web site addresses, or other
electronic media, of two or more unaffiliated on-sale retailers
selling beer, wine, or distilled spirits produced, distributed, or
imported by a nonretail industry member in response to a direct
inquiry from a consumer received by telephone, by mail, by electronic
inquiry, or in person does not constitute a thing of value or
prohibited inducement to the listed on-sale retailer, provided all of
the following conditions are met:
(1) The listing does not also contain the retail price of the
product.
(2) The listing is the only reference to the on-sale retailers in
the direct communication.
(3) The listing does not refer only to one on-sale retailer or
only to on-sale retail establishments controlled directly or
indirectly by the same on-sale retailer.
(4) The listing is made by, or produced by, or paid for,
exclusively by the nonretail industry member making the response.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "nonretail industry member"
is defined as a manufacturer, including, but not limited to, a beer
manufacturer, winegrower, or distiller of alcoholic beverages or an
agent of that entity, or a wholesaler, regardless of any other
licenses held directly or indirectly by that person.

 

Derek pointed out the caveat to this rule, and we're working on getting a beer finder for our website. But yeah, in an email newsletter, I can't name accounts. It feels silly, but the intent is actually valid: to prevent breweries from buying their way into accounts, which is not hard to support if you think the beer market should be a meritocracy. Advertising, including social media, is considered a "thing of value" by the ABC, and breweries aren't allowed to give anything worth over $3 (I believe) to accounts. This is mostly to prevent the mega brewers from monopolizing tap handles by giving away free crap, so I'm actually fine with the inconvenience. But yeah, lots of people break the rules anyway, I just choose not too.

 

You just blew his cover!

 

only to the n00bs haha

 

Shh. I'm a secret.

 

i'm a bit disappointed with blazing world in the can. i had it on tap at the brewery last night and it was really nice, then a can a few hours later. i know the cans just came out so i figured it'd taste about the same but it's much less hoppy. i also couldn't find a date anywhere on the can.

still good though and i hope to find cans of the stout around.

 

What's on-tap at the brewery and what's in the can are from different batches. We're still tweaking our process for all of the beers, and in the case of the first batch of Blazing World in the cans, we tried the "hop torpedo" dry-hopping method. I agree that the resulting beer turned out a bit less aromatic than the beer that's on-tap, so for the next batch we will be making further adjustments to get the aroma back where it should be. If you prefer the tap version, there's always growler fills

 

Are you planning on date-stamping the cans at all?

 

We would love to be doing it now, but the cost puts it out of reach. We're date stamping the case boxes, which will allow our sales rep/Stone's sales reps to keep track of things and swap out any out of code inventory. So at least there's that. I'm hoping we can afford the necessary upgrades to date code the cans themselves within a year, at most.

 

that's interesting. thanks for the response. also thanks for using mosaic in everything, that hop is amazing and i love how you guys are using it.

 

Ha, thanks! That's particularly funny because today when we were talking about future one-offs, the brewers insisted on doing something without "new wave" hops. Some people definitely prefer the grapefruit/pine end of the hop spectrum.

 

don't listen to them. simcoe, citra, mosaic, or something from new zealand in every beer : )

 

yes, anything from new zealand. those kiwis make amazing hops

 

Saw the cans at a local bottle shop today. $10.99 for the four pack. Is that the going rate?