What is your take on Oncemade Beer Project?

That's kind of funny, because they had tastings at each of the shops that held the release. You could try them and buy if you liked, if you didn't either pick up something else or just go home. I get that they tried to pre-sell all of the beers, which didn't happen - but nobody really expected them to from what I can tell -- as you and so many others have stated these are breweries with very little history, especially with this type of release. I guess I would be pissed if I bought the beers and hated them, but if you didn't buy why are you upset?

 

I don't think anyone is pissed off. I was just taken back by the pricing from two pretty much brand new breweries. Firestone Walker anniversary beers don't even cost that much.

 

The Night Shift version was good. Nothing offensive. Lots of raspberry flavor and a quick tannic bite on the finish. Very light in brett but clean. It somewhat reminded me of Raspberry Tart.

The Backlash version I did not like. Probably shouldn't have been released, IMHO. Maybe it's supposed to be a sipper, I don't know. This box is like jekyll and hyde. Would I pay $20+ for either bottle? Hell no. Maybe $16 for the Night Shift version.

I've heard a lot of dumb things on BA but this takes the oncemade cake.

 

When you say raspberry tart, was it sweet like that beer in the sugary sense? From what I can remember Belgian Red is SWEET, but Raspberry Tart was just sweet.

 

That and the fact they these are unfinished beers being sold ... what is going to happen if that Brett kicks in and the FG was a bit too high at bottling? At that price tag I would expect the beer(s) be aged more than a couple months in a barrel. Did they test for any other bugs in the barrels? Perhaps the bottles will be fine and I hope they are for the buyers sake.

FWIW this is what BeerAdvocate is and has always been about ... discussing all aspects of beer. The good, bad and ugly. Embracing and asking questions all of the time ... perhaps pushing back when needed.

 

Sometimes as "advocates of beer" we need to talk about the negatives of beers/brewers. If we do not discuss the negative side of things we become just a bunch of fanboys. We do not know the hows and whys behind these beers coming to market to early and it would be nice to find these things out. The beers are out there now and people are providing their opinions on the beers and the whole Oncemade process. IMHO this is not "threadshitting" this is a form of advocating.

 

I didnt think it of it as overly sweet. The comparison I made was to show the level of fruit flavor it had. Backlash's felt muted but the strong lingering bitterness and brandy didnt let me taste much else.

 

Agree. Beer Advocate ≠ Beer Cheerleader.

 

Hey all,

I am one of the three founders of Night Shift, and wanted to try and clear up a few of the misunderstandings in this thread about the OnceMade project:

- On this first point I'd like to make it very, very clear - this is not a cash-grab, get-rich-quick plot to ruin craft beer. In fact, the margins we're making on this project are lower than those of most other beers we sell. We never intended it to be something that made us a lot of capital, and turns out it's making us even less than expected. And we're fine with that. Local raspberries cost a lot. Pinewood boxes cost a lot. Time costs a lot, and it took a lot of time. We're putting out an expensive, "luxury" product, both for us to make and for our consumers to buy. And it's a TINY amount of it - 900 boxes total.

- When approached by Pintley, we saw it as a pretty cool project worth trying out - a fresh take on a local brewery collaboration (i.e. give two local brewers similar restrictions and have each brew their own versions) that includes some very unique, beautiful packaging. I understand that many on here could care less about the packaging and would prefer just the beers, but the idea behind it was to do something new. We viewed them more like gift packs than just another two beers on the shelf. And as echoed on this thread, people can choose to buy or not. Those who do know exactly what they're buying - there are no gimmicks or tricks about what's being included.

- I am not sure why anyone would suggest that the beers are $22.50 each. It's pretty clear that people are buying more than two beers. The box, wax-sealed letter, and coasters all cost money, so the simple math of 45 divided by 2 makes no sense in coming up with the value of the bottles themselves. Bearsonacid's comment is about right - outside the project, we'd sell the beers at roughly $16 a bottle.

- We aren't really sure where the notion of the beers being "not ready" and "released too early" comes from. There are many factors that determine when a beer gets released. Most obvious are fermenting to a terminal gravity and achieving a desired flavor profile. We at Night Shift take both of those extremely seriously. We often postpone a beer's release date if the beer is not ready or to our liking. In fact, we did that with this project (delayed about a month).

- Regarding both the Wild Queen and Wild King, sure, the brett character is subtle and in its infancy, but that was not an accident or a rush-job. It was by design. The beers have picked up barrel flavors (from 3 months in the barrels), the essences of the raspberry fruit, and a soft, bretty character, thus achieving our desired flavor profile. The beers were bottled with the idea that cellaring would change the beverage over time, and eventually bring it to a peak. We never advertised the beer as a lambic with years of Brett character. But, we have done many test batches with brett and can taste its character in a beer in a matter of a few weeks, not years. It all depends on how it is used. I am not sure how different this is than DFH 120 or Sierra Nevada Bigfoot releases. Both of those beers are rather undrinkable (IMO) when they are released, but a few years of cellaring and they reach their peak. Same is true for most wines. How is the OnceMade any different? We think they both taste quite good right now, which is great, but expect them to taste even better with time.

- As for concerns about carbonation level - the beers were bottled in hefty champagne bottles designed to hold extra pressure. We also bottled the beers with a slightly lower carbonation level than usual, accounting for potential continued bottle fermentation. That being said, we are confident that the beers have reached near-terminal gravity, as intended. Our Wild Queen fermented down to 1.013, and Backlash's Wild King down to 1.006. These beers were brewed 4.5 months ago and spent a large portion of that time at high fermentation temps (80+ degrees) to reach full attenuation. Under-fermentation isn't an issue.

- Not sure why us having a 1/6 barrel keg of each beer on tap at our brewery would anger anyone. Everyone who bought the beer before release clearly understood that it was a buy-before-try situation. With a little beer extra at the end, we decided to keg it so people picking up pre-sold packages at the brewery could try the product now (allowing for a comparison later if they do decide to age it). And because not all the packages pre-sold, we're letting other visitors sample the beer to help inform a potential purchase. Problems?

- I mentioned above that our margins on this beer are lower than our regular beers. Why? Aside from costly ingredients and packaging, it also involved an insane number of hours and moving parts. We are a nanobrewery with an extremely manual brewing process. It took us 14 hours to brew the 7bbls of beer for just our portion of the project. Add countless hours of conditioning the barrels, transferring beer using our small pumps, adding raspberries one handful at a time, monitoring the 4.5 month cellaring process, 10 hours to hand-bottle our portion, and roughly 50 man-hours to assemble the final packages. Every step of the way was a manual labor of love, of which we are extremely proud. The idea of comparing our pricing to Firestone walker or The Bruery is pretty absurd. Firestone brews roughly 60,000bbls of beer and have way better automated equipment. We will brew 350bbl this year, so we're roughly 0.6% the size of Firestone. We don't have anywhere near the economies of scale to offer beer at the same price they do.

- More importantly, most of our customers realize this, and appreciate the hard work and quality control that go into our beers, and are thus willing to pay a little more. We're a company of 3 people who work countless hours every week in order to bring unique beers to the Boston market. We are not in this business to get rich. We are in this business because we love beer.

- Finally, if you have questions about the beer, the process, or reasons behind anything - just ask us. Leave the assumptions and uninformed opinions out of it so everyone here can save some face (and time). We answer every email we receive (positive and negative), and respond to every tweet, Facebook post, and phone call. We don't read these forums every day, so if you want from-the-source, honest information, just ask us.

Furthermore, we welcome everyone - skeptics and supporters - to come try the beers for yourself at our brewery. We are open tomorrow (Saturday) from 12-5pm, and every night next week from 5-9pm. We hold no grudges and encourage you to chat with us in person, discuss the project, challenge it if you like, and give us your honest feedback. If you don't like the beers, feel free to let us know why. If you love them, we'd like to hear that too.

Cheers,
Rob Burns

 

Hi Rob,

I hope you understand that sometimes the skeptics will outweigh the Fans. In the past and somewhat present, we still have people who don't believe or understand Craft beers. I understand that what you did here was more than just a beer. The box, bottles and extra care make it look great and give it a touch of elegance. With that said, You've created a limited wine like product and experience but unfortunately the crowd it is aimed at just cares about the content. I knew when I purchased you beers that I was going to sit on it for a bit. What I didn't know was how awesome the packaging is. Cheers to you and your team. I live in Boston and will continue to support local till the end(especially when it's great beer like yours). Congrats on this release and Keep doing what you guys are doing,

 

I was with you until...

It's a little facetious to say you can't fathom how people could take a package of two beers for $45, divide by two, and get $22.50/bottle. Maybe that's not how you'd do the math, but most of us are here for the beer, and I'd hope you'd see that's why people say $22.50/bottle.

Plus, if the packaging accounts for nearly 30% of the price, well...that seems like a very large chunk...

 

I am curious who this project was targeting as consumers. It seems as if the target audience was fairly small, or smaller than you thought, since these packs are still for sale. Don't you think you could have ditched the gimmicky boxes and stuff, saved yourself tons of time, and then in the end sold more because you could have offered the packs for less? I'd probably have sprung for two $15 bottles, maybe others out there are like me. Not sure how distribution works for this beer, but since you guys are selling them I'd venture a guess that you guys have to sell all the beer to get all of your money/profit from this project. Ditch all the expensive non-beer stuff and you'd guys have your money back a lot quicker.

 

Thanks for the response, Rob and co. I think you make some good points. However...

True.

Except this means it didn't HAVE to be a buy-before-try situation, except for those people who already did.

Imagine you were buying a car online. Obviously, you'd know going into the purchase that you wouldn't be able to test-drive it online. Maybe you're on the fence, but you're told that it's an exclusive car only available at this website to be picked up at a lot. You decide to make the purchase. You show up to pick up the car, and there are people test-driving it there at the same time. Sure, you can test-drive it too, but you can't un-buy it if it's bad like those on the lot currently.

As a consumer, wouldn't you feel slighted? It's all because of the sales and marketing. Nothing to do with allowing people to try the product before they buy or when picking up (which I think is smart). If the website did the opposite, and PROMOTED the fact that you could try it first and then buy it, there would be 0 issue with the kegging.

 

I see where you're trying to go, but I think it's difficult to compare purchasing a car to a purchasing a beer package. Any customer had the style, list of ingredients, and process available to them. Ever buy a $20 book after only reading a synopsis? A $20-30 board game just based on the description or a recommendation? Take a date to a movie and drop $20 after only seeing a trailer? The beers are a little more than that, but I'd argue it's a similar dice roll vs. a five figure automobile purchase.

I'm likely in the same boat as most of the people in the thread, as the price was prohibitive for me so I passed. I still don't understand where the hostility comes from beyond that. There's no shortage of other beer choices for me to move on to and not think twice about this. If someone gets caught up in the hype and feels let down for some reason, I couldn't possibly muster an ounce of concern.

 

Frankly I'm shocked that so much hating in a thread is allowed to continue, but I guess when a founder/moderator chimes in, their hands are tied to let the thread continue. Props to Rob for stepping up to address the concerns. I just read through this thread and stewed on it for a while and wanted to throw in my two cents.

I'm about to head out to pick up my Oncemade package from the folks at Night Shift. When this project was announced, I didn't hesitate to buy one. I am the target audience for this project. Not because I'm sucker for marketing (I am, admittedly) but mostly because I'm a hopeless optimist. I've chatted with the guys at Night Shift and appreciate what they're doing in that they are putting out some interesting, quality beers. I've also had every beer that Backlash has put out because every time I do, I'm impressed. So I basically looked at this as a Kickstarter project for a pair of experimental beers from two local breweries I respect. I've backed a bunch of projects on Kickstarter, too, knowing full well that I'm overpaying for what I'm getting, but that's fine with me because I'm helping someone push the envelope with funding that they would have trouble getting otherwise. $45 is not a lot of money. $22.50 per beer, if that's how you look at it, is not a lot of money. Are there better beers, $4$, out there? Of course there are. But there are also much worse ways to spend the money. In the end, I'm hoping that this investment leads Night Shift and Backlash to expand their barrel programs and offer more at $16/btl.

 

The thread is "What is your take on the OnceMade Project?" People are giving their take, both ways. This is perhaps the thread with the least amount of off topic stuff I've seen on this site.

@pjl44 The only thing the price changes in the comparison I made was change the scope of the anger, and as you say in your second paragraph, the price was prohibitive to a majority of people. Enough for those who preordered to have a legitimate gripe about the way the project was marketed by Pintley (who i'm sure handled that aspect of the project). Not everyone will feel slighted obviously, but I think anyone who feels that way is justified.

 

Honestly, I don't give a hoot about coasters, letters or fancy boxes. If you could get this out in milk cartons at a reasonable price, then I might bite. Not at this price, or $16 per bottle, for sure.... I have stopped buying a lot of the new, hot biers because they are priced too tickerifically... just my 2 cents....

Prosit!

 

Just re-read this: "I am not sure how different this is than DFH 120 or Sierra Nevada Bigfoot releases. Both of those beers are rather undrinkable (IMO) when they are released, but a few years of cellaring and they reach their peak. Same is true for most wines."

Bigfoot undrinkable at release? Big loss of credibility points (IMO).... ;-)

 

I read that and thought the same thing.