Upland persimmon labic n/a

tasted delicious at the tasting at Kahn's....sorry to hear the delay continues

 

i hear they won't... but i'm with you. they had a batch of kiwi explode a while back and didn't end up honoring reservations later on. of course, we could all witness a miracle and spontaneous carbonation could still happen (or could have happened since i last checked in), or they could let everyone with an outstanding reservation opt in or out of the next lambic batch, but i'm not holding out hope.

 

I don't know if I can agree with that sentiment.

You don't pay anything for a reservation, you merely enter in some basic information and click the bottle (quickly as possible these days) you'd like to reserve. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I understand that you would be a little bit upset by the fact that you went straight for the Persimmon and didn't get other bottles, and then the Persimmon won't be released. However, don't we also rail against breweries that knowingly release beer that has carbonation issues?

I also have a reservation for Persimmon, and I hope that they either release Persimmon eventually, or use my reservation as right of first refusal for the next Lambic to come out. However, if they don't, It's not like I'm actually out anything except for my time that I spent refreshing the website when reservations became available.

As for the Kiwi Lambic barrel explosion years back, how is that BS? Again, folks weren't actually out any money, and they were producing less lambic than they are currently. It wasn't until a couple of years later that they re-released Kiwi Lambic.

What's the answer? Honestly it would probably be to do away with the reservation system, and sell these beers quietly without advance notification. Seems like that is the model that has kept the most people happy over the past year.

Cheers!

 

Waiting until the product is good to go can't hurt, but this is the first batch where they have had undercarbonation problems. Previously (as possibly yourself and many others here have experienced) they have had massive overcarbonation problems which they advised the public of at the time of release. When you look at the bottling dates on the majority of the lambics, you can see that they are bottling them months before the reservations typically to give them as much time as possible to condition to a point where the brewery is happy with them.

I had a great experience with Upland more than a year ago where there was a mixup with the lambics I picked up for a number of local BA's, and they resolved that situation quickly and easily. I think they do the absolute best they can, but I can understand your complaints even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

Cheers!

 

I Definitly see your point, but, what about all the people who didnt reserve this batch because, they were eagerly awaiting a different varient. By giving the reservations to all the persimmon people, doesn't that screw over those waiting their turn to reserve the flavor they were waiting on? I don't think there is really a solution that will make everyone happy, so they just have to do their best. Maybe, do their online reservations as normal with the next batch. Then give persimmon people (who didn't get reservations for the new batch) first shot at unclaimed bottles from the new batch?

 

Ahhh, my bad, I misunderstood. In that case, I think your spot on!

 

my sense is the issues with this batch of Persimmon go beyond undercarbonation (...that's just the rumor on the Bloomington street )

it would seem that waiting until the product is good-to-go before reservations could solve this issue (it's not like the lambics wouldn't be able to survive the few extra weeks of age that the reservation logistics take up), and while i'd also love to see these reservations honored in future releases (it'd be cool if everyone with a persimmon reservation was able to, by email with a copy of their reservation confirmation, opt in or out of a reservation on the next release), it feels as though Upland - like many other breweries out there that have hit gold with a style - is still grappling with how to deal with the demand. hence the lottery for Sour Reserve 2; i'm not sure they anticipated how many people would flood the system with everyone they know's emails as a way to create an imbalance in their favor (or, as i would more bluntly put it, cheating). they're learning and adapting... i guess the real question is whether or not we can get reasonable and supportive feedback to Upland in a way that they'd care to hear.

 

personally, i'd rather see a bottled cherry bourbon barrel teddy bear kisses than another batch of persimmon... but, hey that's just me : )

 

I was at the Indy tasting room last weekend and the staff there made some vague comments that they were thinking about the possibility of potentially making an announcement in the not so distant future about the bottles. The strangest thing is that the more I think about it the more I'm certain that the few bottles that they had at the Kahns tasting were fresh, and I thought persimmon was great. If anything I remember raspberry gushing.