The Veil Brewing - Richmond

My local guy said "pretty good out of 10". Glad I missed the line but will totally come up one of thse weekends.

 

Agree it was completely mismanaged. And management I spoke with were absolutely unapologetic. Actual event not like their Facebook posts. People simply wanting food had to wait in same line as those wanting cans. We gave up. hope their product is good enough to survive their poor showing at opening.

 

I don't understand how this can continue to plague Richmond-area brewery releases. Is there something I'm missing that makes event planning much harder than it appears, at least organizing lines and sale points?

 

Bad idea having the IPA's prepoured and just sitting there. Crucial Taunt definitely looked the part of a NEIPA, but my cup had barely any aromatics (left? I'm guessing they blew off with offgassing) Just bitterness. It wasn't bad by any means, just wasn't a juice bomb. Hopefully having a freshly cracked can will alleviate that. Place is really cool though.

 

I opted to try and avoid the worst of the lines, and potentially
missing something, and arrived around 6:30. walked straight to the wrist-bands then to the tickets and got my 4pk, a glass and drink tickets. went inside and grabbed some drinks...
yeah, I missed the gold opening glass, etc but I didn't have to spend 3-4 or whatever hours in line.

all the beers were good to very good, loved Master Shredder! will be interesting to see how Sleeping Forever progresses. the space is fantastic! looking forwards to great things from Matt and company

 

I didn't try the grapefruit one, but I think the other 3 are all excellent. I'm here now, there are still mixed 4-packs available.

 

Disappointing seeing them setting limits so low for people who waited to still have 4 packs available this late.

 

Good to hear, I was hoping there would be some left for today.

 

Why? They said from the get go that they wanted to spread it out. From my understanding there are 1,100 allotments of the mixed 4 pack. They expected to have about 2k people coming and going yesterday. They set the limit at what they thought was appropriate to get the beer in as many hands as possible. Turned out that not everyone who came out wanted to grab 4 packs to go. There will always be complaining, but I think The Veil handled this one pretty well. That, and half of those beers will be regularly available anyway.

 

I agree, I was very happy to be able to swing by at 9:30 and still get beer to go. I don't see any reason to pander to people who line up hours before opening, that is obnoxious.

 

No limit on remaining cans today per their post this morning. I'd love to trade for some of the IPA's if anyone ends up with extra and is interested in recent Wicked Weed stuff or some limited stouts.

 

They should have put out that information ahead of time so people could have made an informed decision. If there's a huge line and you want to get some of the canned beer that won't be available then you have no choice but to wait because they put out no info on limits. Then after waiting you get restricted to a tiny amount? That's pretty disappointing and poor management on their end.

 

I do agree that it sucks to wait in line and then realize you didn't have to.

But that's not the brewery's fault.

 

All they had to do was put out the limits and how many allotments there were ahead of time like they said they were going to but they didn't communicate that info. Communication is really simple and I hope they do a better job in the future. "We have X number of 4 packs and we anticipate X so the limits are X per person. We'll sell the leftovers after."

 

they've stated for days that the limits would be determined by the size of the line.

 

How do breweries win???? A brewery has larger limits and they sell out, they get shit on. Smaller limits and everyone gets some, still get shit on. Can people just stop whining for once? Jesus this shit gets so old.

 

I've already heard and seen plenty concerning (a) the hype (people asking for "no OG loons" for 4-packs on trade pages) and (b) the complaints about the lines -- but anyone care to share what they thought about the beer, please? Would love to hear opinions on it.

 

Beer was top notch for first batches and I only expect it to get better.

 

I see Master Shredder being the new daily RVA drinker

 

I'd imagine it was difficult for them to gauge how many people were going to be there, considering it was their first day being open.

And that being the case, I don't think it's reasonable to fault them for trying to get their beer in as many different hands as possible. I know if I was a brand new brewery, I'd want to get as many different people as possible to try my beer.