VT Hopjam

I have VIP tickets for my wife and I, but considering my house is 1:30-45 away (in between Okemo and Killington) there is no way we are going to be consuming 10 full pours. Is my best bet to just start asking for partial pours or try to sell the tokens to someone? Is there anything else the tokens can be used for? (I know, probably a silly question...)

 

Non-BIPs have to buy beer tickets separately, so I'm sure you could try to sell them your extras. I think they go for 5 or 6 bucks apiece.

 

Can anyone that went last year weigh in on what the entrance situation is going to be like? Should I expect a long line and plan to get there early if I actually want to be inside getting beer shortly after noon? Thanks.

 

We got there right around noon last year at and waited probably 15 minutes in line to get in, it wasn't bad at all, NOTHING like the ridiculousness of VT Brewers Fest.

 

that's what I like to hear! Thanks for the info.

 

Tree House on Twitter: Alter Ego, Julius and......Good Morning.

 

Today is not going to suck!

 

It did not suck indeed. Couldn't have asked for a nicer day at Bolton Valley. Lots of hops to enjoy and plenty of surprises - my one disappointment was that the Maple Feyston kicked with about five people in front of me....didn't help that a bunch of people were cutting lines. Only suggestion for future events would be a dedicated water station.

Other than that, great event with awesome food, music, games, and a lot of great beers. Treehouse Good Morning & Alter Ego, Trillium Headroom, Fiddlehead Mastermind were the best for me.

 

I was pretty disappointed in the lack of organization regarding lines. There was only one shaded area combining a few picnic tables and the beer lines all together with everyone just hanging around drinking in the middle of it all. You couldn't tell where any lines started or what was being poured unless you elbowed through to the beer tables. If there were separate areas for people to hang / eat in the shade, it would have been totally different and way less frustrating.

The way beer lines were merged was also poorly planned. Why put 2 major breweries together at a table, doubling the line length? It got awfully clusterfucked after a while. I missed out on several great beers because of line cutting.

I left having spent more money than I wanted and feeling dissatisfied with the experience as a whole.

 

While it was a bit of a cluster under the tent, overall I feel like they did a pretty good job considering the venue and how it doesn’t exactly lend itself to organization. My biggest complaint might have to be the way they distributed the highly sought after beers, usually tapping two back to back at the same station, and tapping 3-4 big names at the same time so you had to pick 1, maybe 2 to sample. By 6pm (event ends at 10pm) everything “special” was gone – well, maybe Mastermind came on after that but for the most part we were left with a blueberry weiss, a couple from High Horse, Two Roads, and a Sierra Nevada. OK beers, but not what I paid a premium ticket price for.

 

They had a "Hydration station" AKA labeled garden hose at the bottom of the hill next to the T-Shirt tent. It tasted like toilet water randalled through packing peanuts.

 

My thoughts:

Did VIP tix both years, had a fine time last year and this. Leaning toward going again--altho VIP is questionable, and early bird VIP almost certainly not.

As my buds and I rationalized in 2014, the VIP early bird ticket ($110?) essentially pays for itself (apologies if my numbers are off): concert/general admission ($40), 12 food/drink tickets ($60), t-shirt/coozie ($10), plus VIP section, bathrooms etc. The (IMO) huge difference between 2014 and 2015 is that there were VIP-only beers/lines all day in 2014, whereas in 2015 there were VIP-only beers from 11am-12pm, then everyone had access to the same beers all day long. Of course, for a 12 hour (11am-11pm) event, how many beers do you want to drink from 11am-12pm? In other words, paying $110 in March vs $45 (or whatever) day of got me a 4 oz pour of Good Morning (and just like at EBF, it was ice fucking cold, so essentially worthless til you let it warm for 20 minutes). Wheeeeeeeee! I also had a Focal from 11am-12pm but it was still available for GA after 12pm, so that was no advantage.

I believe there were a bunch of complaints from GA people in 2014 about the lack of access to VIP beers? (Like HF was advertised on the site in 2014 but the lone entry, Earl--mmm, stout on a 90 degree day--was only available for VIPs, so peops complained about false advertising?) I could be wrong. In any event, now the pendulum has swung 180 degrees and there is zero advantage to getting VIP tix--especially considering you did not know the draft list until you arrived. (In 2014, all of the beers were announced about a week in advance, if I recall.) I emailed a week before the event to ask if beer list would be posted early (like in 2014) and received no response. I did email when early bird VIP tix were onsale to ask what breweries would be there, and was told "It will be better than last year!" However, if the person had mentioned that VIP and GA would have same access to all the beers--a decision possibly not made at that point--I certainly would not have committed to early bird VIP.

It's pretty amazing that at a 12 hour beer fest where you're drinking 8% DIPAs all day, the state does not require a certain amount of water stations per person (organizer early on said they were expecting 1100 peops). One Igloo cooler set up on picnic table near beer lines.

Regarding the food, beer and bands:

I thoroughly enjoyed the dumplings I got from (Phantom Food Truck? Sorry if that's wrong) and terrific 'za slices from Woodbelly.

Everyone I spoke with agreed that Headroom was the clear winner.

Rough Francis kicked the shit out of their set. We left at 6ish, so apologies for missing last two bands.

Bottom line: Above observations aside, had a good time meeting friends old and new. My favorite thing about the VT craft beer scene is seeing the same cast of characters everywhere. Hop Jam, HF, Three Penny, Coop, Worthy...you're gonna run into the same cool ppl at each place.

 

Goes to show you can't please everyone. I think the complaints people have are legitimate, but didn't bother/affect me. I arrived about 11:15 and pretty much walked right in. Had my first beer in minutes. Some of the big name beers had some pretty long lines but I found they moved pretty quickly and didn't mind shooting the breeze with some of the people. Still managed 3 beers before GA people came in, although I did a bit of standing in line while enjoying my current beer. After that I would just get up when I was done and there was a break in the band sets for a new beer. I think the longest I had to wait was 10 or so mins for a fill. Didn't really notice line cutting and compared to some other fests I have been to, it was almost downright orderly.

Was glad the tickets were good for both beer and food. I was driving so I got some noodles and dumplings to take home with the remaining tickets and off I went.

With all that said, I would probably skip BIP next year. The t-shirt is cool, but not needed. The BIP only beers while nice, didn't seem worth the extra cost and I didn't find the lines _that_ bad after GA. Being that my drive was 1.5 hours each way, I didn't need that much beer or food so would be willing to just buy as many tickets as I needed.

Most anticipated beer: Focal, didn't like as much as Heady.
Best beer: Headroom, sad I drank too fast because line moved quicker than I was expecting.
Worst beer: Zero Gravity CSA IPA, was going to be my last beer, so maybe my palate was blown...