What is your take on Oncemade Beer Project?

I was a little disappointed to see this on Beerpulse this morning, honestly. My knee jerk reaction was "Why would I pay Cantillon prices for a beer made by some startup brewers?" Now mind you I understand barrels cost money and these guys don't have a Harpoon IPA in their portfolio to pay the bills. So it must cost a bit to make, but, has this beer been aged for three years? Have they been brewing these styles for 15 years? Where is the track record? Might as well just throw it right on Ebay? Just Kidding. Yeah. It had better be world class or just shoot yourself in the foot. Its not like anyone samples these kinds of beers out to accounts. A practice not yet adapted by the beer community that is essential in the wine world to get your products sold. At some point a beer has to be more than just a collectable. Sorry for the soap box but there is a bunch of things I think about when purchasing beer for a store and paying for experiments is one of them. I don't want to come off like a dick but even Cantillon doesn't cost $25 in Belgium.

 

Sounds like a BS Cash grab to me from two pretty much unproven breweries.

 

Way too expensive for beers that no one has tried yet. What's to say these new brewers get the barrel aging process right?

And why is the beer for sale 2 months before it's ready?

 

Kind of an odd project from two unknown breweries. The beer could be great.

Two months on brett sounds like a rush job though. I don't even see how that could finish fermenting.

 

That's what the cellar package is for bro.

If Jack's Abby had been involved in this I would have thought about a purchase, but they don't need Thricemade to barrel age beer for them.

 

Did they just put it in the barrels this month?

 

This is a joke, right?

 

Just make a decent beer and forget about all of the useless schwagg!

 

You guys are asking why it's expensive? Because you are paying for Pintley's PR budget to hype the hell out of this thing.

My guess: It seems like this "collaboration" is just an ellaborate marketing package from Pintley, which brings a little national promotional muscle (nice video on the site, actually) to these new small brewers who normally wouldn't have this kind of PR budget to spend. Otherwise why wouldn't Night Shift and Backlash just brew the beer and distribute themselves per usual?

As a PR guy myself, I can appreciate this targeting of rare beers fans - who seemingly will fork over any amount of cash because someone deems the beer rare or exclusive. It's a perfect market for this kind of thing. The whole "sign up early" campaign on Twitter definitely got my attention. So it's been fairly well executed so far.

But as a craft beer fan, they may have overreached. The website needs to tone down the hype to maintain its credibility. "Unforgettable," "Make your move before it's gone" "extremely limited"....this is over the top for a beer no one has tried. And do craft beer fans really want a little wooden box and certificate of authenticity and such? They may have overextended on that idea. Just give me the beer.

Given that, if I'm Night Shift or Backlash, it might be worth a shot, so long as they got a good deal out of it and their rep doesn't suffer from hardcore fans. The beer sounds very interesting actually. I'd love to try it, and I'd buy a bottle at a resonable price for the priviledge to do so. And I'm a big big fan of Night Shift - really like their beers and the guys personally. But I think I'll pass and just hope they get some good promotion out of this to help them continue to suceed and brew great beers in the long run.

 

I find the price to be a little steep but not ridiculous. I think its a nice pakcage, however I think some nice custom stemware would be a lot better than a useless piece of barrel.

 

Too rich for my blood. Forcing you to buy packs of 2 kind of puts the last nail in the coffin. I'd rather spend $15 for one 750ml sour at White Birch than gamble $20+ on 2 unknown bottles.

 

You'd actually rather buy white birch?? That's a strong indication of how bad of an idea this is!

 

I've had Night Falls and Total Chaos and I thought both were pretty good, so if I wanted to try my chances on a one-off bottle of wild ale/barrel aged whatever, I would try them again.

 

I like Night Shift- I had a great time when I visited the brewery and I definitely like supporting them. Considering the relatively steep price, the breweries being relatively new and unknown, and that there are 900 packages being released I think they will be sitting on the shelves for awhile. Before I think about spending $45 on it I'm going to wait for a couple reviews and see if they discount it at all. I would have preferred if they cut the price $10-15 and not included the the extra gimmicky stuff or sold the bottles separately.

 

I don't understand the joking I see of White birch on BA. The 2 beers I've had of theirs (granted, it's just 2) have been quite tasty. And while their reviews show them to not be elite, they have a number of beers with solid ratings, so I can't be the only one who thinks this. I can think of other breweries far, far worse.

Count me in the camp of not wanting to give my money to this hoopla of a beer release. A "barrel-aged sour imperial Saison"? Am I supposed to be wooed by all of those adjectives that get thrown around like candy these days? Along with the packaging, it just all sounds silly and a bit too pretentious for 2 breweries who are still trying to solidify themselves on the local scene (at least in my eyes).

 

Yeah, the pine box, coasters, and piece of barrel do nothing for me besides add to the cost.

 

You guys should all be ashamed, this is not constructive criticism, and thus, you are not being beer advocates :-)

 

Yeah exactly, I'd love to try the beers just not at that cost. I kind of hope if they aren't selling the packages they break them apart and sell the beer separately for a lower cost. I could maybe justify paying $15/bottle to try it if I it's decent.

 

I'm not ashamed. The whole industry could use a little reining in if you ask me. Don't ask people to pay for your experiments. If you are going to charge wine prices for your beer it had better be the equal to a bottle of Estate Grown Cab or Nebbiolo. There should be a track record. There should be a "reason" it is so expensive. I have a hard time believing a brand new brewer and a contract brewed beer company get together with a PR firm and throw in a bunch of bells and whistles can pull off a world class beer. Jumping the Shark is right. This beer better deliver or the credibility on everyone involved is in jeopardy. Brew this beer for 5 years then bottle the finished result.