Summit 12ers

Chi-Lake has them at $10.99 as well as Lake Wine and Spirits. I'm sure other places too....

 

Big top labor day sale 10.99. Shells at same price

 

I think I just paid 14.99 for the ofest in Detroit Lakes...which is fine since the Bemidji stores closer to where I live have been told by the distributor this only comes out after Labor Day....never mind it has been out since July in the TC.... that is my life in never never land so I don't mind the $14.99 price since it is better than no O fest right now...I'm in the mood.....been watching more pre-season football than ever...

 

We are on pace in the TC area to be sold out of Oktoberfest in early September. You may have it around a bit longer. Consider yourself lucky. It's drinking really nice right now.

 

Note to self....must return to big top before sale ends and/or it runs out. Either of which is likely to bring the wrath of my wife if she doesn't get her "quota" of Octoberfest.

 

As good as this sounds, in my opinion, that's sad. In my personal preference, I enjoy Ofests much more when the weather gets cool. Not that I don't enjoy them otherwise, but I am somewhat a seasonal beer drinker. It's gonna be 90 degrees all week here. Not ofest weather for me. I'm still in the mood for Schell's hefe. And now come mid to late September when it's hopefully getting cool outside Summit Ofest might be gone? Not cool in my opinion. Of course there will be tons of other Ofests to choose from, but Summit is one of my favorites. Guess I should grab some now and save for later.

 

I find it odd when 3 or so weeks ago some 55+ year old guy was asking a beer salesman if he had any Octoberfest in yet. What the heck I thought to myself. Go grab a nice 6'er of Hopsession or something old guy, enjoy these nice summer brews.

Out of the few Octoberfest beers that I had last year, Summit had the best flavor. Says a lot when I typically don't enjoy that style much. So cheers to them for making a good beer in a boring(to me) category. I'm sure their's will be the only OF I get this year.

 

Summer Ale off the shelves the week of July 4th, Oktoberfest off the shelves in early September, no 12ers of Saga (yet). Yikes, Summit.

 

Please understand that our seasonal release schedule his year was not a sales decision made by Summit. It was logistics. At this point, we are experiencing capacity issues. Currently at Summit, we are literally emptying a tank in the morning, cleaning it the same morning and filling it ASAP. We are turning out beer as quickly as possible.

Saga has been bumped from the original expectation of 3 brew days per month to 8.

The logistics of our seasonals have caused us some problems this year as well. The simple fact of brewing at our scale is our lagers take 6-8 weeks in a tank and our ales take 2-3 weeks. We went from making a lager (Maibock) in the spring to an ale (Summer) in the Summer, and back to another lager (Oktoberfest) for the fall. The transitions caused us some difficulties in scheduling brews in order to have Oktoberfest done in time at the quantities we projected. Summer Ale selling much quicker than any previous summer beer in Summit history threw off our entire seasonal schedule. It's a great problem to have. But, it's a problem nonetheless.

We are working to fix these issues as quickly as possible. We are in the process of installing some more bright beer tanks. That install will make the logistics of holding our lagers for a longer period of time a lot less strenuous on our brewhouse. Also. We are now able to gauge the rate at which Summer ale sold this year and adjust our projections for the amount of product we want to produce next year.

We would like to be drinking Oktoberfest once the weather gets colder as well. Oktoberfest is a tricky product to project. It's a very short season. Most retailers will tell you that sales of Oktoberfest beers die as of November 1st. We don't want to make too much. This time, unfortunately, we made too little and by the time we could secure more materials and turn out more brews....it would be too late. That said, no excuses, we made a few mistakes this year. They were all made in effort to supply you with better products from Summit.

 

that's crazy, you guys are selling mad beer

 

Thanks for the response John. Obviously brewing schedules are way more complicated than the common folk like I realize. Keep doing what you're doing....brewing great beer.

 

John, you have background in politics, no? Your turd polishing capabilities are top notch. However, Oktoberfest is not a "tricky product to project". It's never been tricky in the past, and other brewers don't seem to have much of a problem.

Managing growth can be difficult, and whomever is in charge of it over there is failing. Case in point; you're selling Oktoberfest from the last week in June to last week of August.

You're not making more because November might be "too late"? Well then what would your definition of too early be? April? I'll gladly grab a fresh Marzen in November vs July.

I love drinking fresh Summit Oktoberfest in late September/early October, it's never been an issue in the past, so I hope you guys get your shit together for next year. Please don't respond with paragraph after paragraph of bullshit, as per usual.

 

Just keep making more Saga.

 

I'm gonna take a wild guess that you have never been involved in production of a seasonal product, or the getting to retail of said product.

Summit has only so many tanks they can devote to seasonal brews, they also have only so much space to store the materials needed to make those brews (and when they run out it isn't like running to cub to pick up a jar of miracle whip) They projected for their summer ale to sell much slower than it did, which would have kepts it's shelf space full until later in the year when it would be replaced by octoberfest. If the shelf of Summit seasonals gets emptied, then a liquor store might just fill it up with something else, and then there is no space for Summit when ofest comes out. The summer ale sold much faster than expected (cause it was a fucking awesome beer) and the time needed to get more materials to make more would not have allowed it to get to market fast enough for Summit. So they pushed up the brewing schedule, and are adjusting on the back end.

Is it a perfect solution? No, and I'm pretty sure John would agree with that as well, however it is the best solution they could come up with, and will readjust next year so they have more materials on site for Summer Ale, and more time for brewing it (along with more tanks). Kudos to Summit for growing and making good beer that the masses are starting to get hooked on (I was feeding family members who generally drink coors light Summer Ale and the Pilsner from the seasonal packs and they were loving it and buying their own).

 

Why should anyone take you seriously when you are such a jerk? Your response to John was extremely rude and your anger over this whole situation is bizzare. It's just beer.

 

I sense a bit of late night liquid courage at work in your last post. Something I always encourage!

I said it before, we screwed up. If you are picturing a suited business type at the helm of Summit Brewing declaring that we must beat the competition to market with our Oktoberfest, you are giving our ragtag organization way too much credit.

Typically, we would start feathering in brews of Okto in late May in order to build stock that we need to carry us through the season. That is why we had stock, to supply to retail, when we ran shy on Summer Ale. Our brew schedule for 2012 was determined in 2011, just as we are now scheduling for 2013. When we determine our brew schedule, we also order packaging in the quantities that we have projected. Even if we were able to make a few extra brews of Okto this year, we may not have had packaging to put it in. We have some agreements in place with a few big box retailers such as Sam's Club and Costco. We have to supply them with 12 pack seasonal samplers. It is not an option for us to run out. The only option we had was to switch to Fall samplers a bit early.

Also, keep in mind that I said we will be out of Okto at our brewery in September. That doesn't mean that our distributors (or retailers) will be out at that time. That just means that we won't have any more to send them. I would bet that many retail locations will still have product into October.

 

@Tamarack22 I completely agree with mjryan. In every sense of being logical, I would much rather as a business owner end up making too little of a product in retrospect of my product flying off the shelf, than having the exact opposite problem where it just sits there, nobody buys it, and all the money spent in hopes of a profit go down the drain. Did they intentionally make "too little" compared to any other year they've made Octoberfest? I strongly think Hell No.

It's all about what the company projects it's future sales of a certain beer will be, and plans accordingly. Maybe since Summit is making really good beer, a lot of random people putting their toes into the craft beer waters for the first time grab something from Summit, and really really enjoy it. They grab more when they run out, have some in the fridge when they have friends over, etc. It's snowballing, building momentum. It's all pretty simple if you ask me.

I would also guess that by the time Nov 1st comes along, a lot of your core craft beer drinkers have moved on to the Stouts, Christmas ales, etc. So yea, I'd also say it would be too late.

What you are doing is sitting on a soap box, with no real proof of your "grand knowledge" of how to run a brewery. I have no grand knowledge on the true inner workings of a brewery, but a decent amount of common sense to connect the dots, and to see things logically.

To quote John "That said, no excuses, we made a few mistakes this year. They were all made in effort to supply you with better products from Summit."

You aren't making excuses, just stating simple facts, and providing more transparency than most people in the industry. You are in business to make great beer, provide for your family, and make a profit. These "mistakes" I would gladly take any day over losing profits because we made too much of too many products that are collecting dust on a shelf.

Your last sentence John sums it all up. Thanks for making great beer!! Keep doing it, being innovative, that's what craft beer is all about.

 

I am not a fan that this will sell out so early, but it is what it is. Saga should still be on the shelves

 

off topic (but actually on topic), everyone should note that $10.99 is not even the sale but the regular price for summit at chicago lake. you can get it there anytime at that price.