What would you like to see at a BeerAdvocate Virtual Fest?

Actually, instead of the jokesters in between beers, can we have @jesskidden teach us stuff?

 

I like the idea of a few previous posters of having different boxes that you could choose. Regional and style mixes. You could order the boxes you want based on preference.

A BA Virtual Fest glass would be a nice addition to the box.

The sessions with brewers, etc. should have a good variety of topics to ensure there is something interesting for everybody.

I recently purchased a beer box and access to the FML Virtual Festival. An interesting thing that is being included in the box is an internal box that folds out into a reversible stage for your beer glass. I assume they want people to use this for social media beer pics during the virtual fest.

 

Regional & style options would be a big draw; many people only drink certain styles or may desire options that cannot get normally. Such is the allure of festivals.

 

I've never been big on beer festivals, likewise, I'm pretty picky on the online beer events I attend. Despite that pessimistic opening, I've had some fun attending an online tasting of a well known beer, with a live discussion between the brewer(s), a BJCP judge, and a local beer writer. It could be interesting to fold in an Advanced/Master Cicerone, to add depth and an additional perspective of the beer outside of the in-house production team.

With those three in the discussion, it made for an interesting breakdown of history of the beer, the style it stems from, how it stacks up to BJCP guidelines, and how it has worked and influenced the local beer community.

It was also nice to be able to pick up the beer locally. Had I had to order the beer online and pay the shipping rates that beer requires - I would've skipped it.

 

Loads of pretzel necklaces

 

Here’s a long shot idea. What if BA partnered with a brewery (or several) that has national distribution and did a variety box collaboration covering a number of different styles (or a deep dive into one particular style), or something along those lines? It could be a roundup featuring folks from the Ask Me Anything forums, or another theme. And then paired that with the virtual experience, guided tastings, q&a, and the like? I’m just thinking of how to balance access with all the other aspects of the festival experience (variety, tastings, interaction).

 

This is what I would want first and foremost would to be able to try items/ beers from regional areas. Would love to be able to experience some more from West of the Mississippi personally.

 

How many states have laws that would allow the shipping of the proposed box? I expect a significant number don't, so some consideration needs to be given to participation from states that don't allow beer shipping. I suppose we just drink what we have and imagine what it would be like to not live in a backwards state?

 

The one I recently purchased a box for had 9 states that were allowed

 

Yeah 18th street does great beer.

 

Hehehe I've done that, expensive as f.

 

I propose having a couple beers during the fest event that are distributed to the states that can't get the package shipped, that is maybe a year-round or easy to get beer that isn't distributed to a lot of the states that receive the package. That way people getting the package that don't want beers that they can always get in the box are satisfied, and some people that want to participate in the event but can't get the beer shipped can still drink a beer and taste with everybody. At the end of the day how many beers can you really enjoy during a 2-3 hour event? I thought 2 beers for each event during the Untappd Fest was enough to last, maybe 3. I'm not sure how many breweries or beers there are though that distribute to most of the states that can't get beer shipped that don't widely distribute to the rest of the country. I would be fine with something from Oskar Blues, Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head or some other well known nationally distributed brewery. I know it doesn't really meet the hype for some people though, and it would still depend on if their local stores carry those particular beers. I wouldn't mind revisiting a classic either like a Belgian or German style, maybe Duvel or Weihenstephaner. Very hard to figure out the logistics of that, never mind the whole debate for regional boxes however that might work for a tasting event.

 

<--

 

All I want is a forum that allowed brewers to talk about the beers they make while we get to drink them. I agree with others that the brewers on the Untappd fest were better than the industry folks.
Bonus points for beers I generally can’t get, but nearly any group of beers that wouldn’t get laughed off this site will do.

Drink, chat, learn, don’t drive. Works for me.

 

The Untappd virtual fest was great! The beer selection was awesome! Honestly, I would say: Just surprise me again!!! I totally trust your expertise picking some good beer to enjoy together.
For the actual event, I would like to see that a bit different. They did not talk all too much about the beer at hand. A little more insight would be nice.

 

<---lives in KY
you GOTTA HAVE a beer address buddy!!! Mine stuff gets shipped to a buddy in OH. It's a 40 min drive one way but that's ok for me. We get to exchange beer and talk smack. Always fun!

 

Speaking of limited reach, I'd say that Bierkeller Columbia would be a natural.

 

I thought NJ was just limited to wine shipments?

 

While I'm not question you, I'm really surprised to see MA on that list. They have some pretty crazy beer shipping/receiving laws. Maybe the laws have changed, which would be great!

 

I would join if it had a good variety of breweries and easy to log in.
Also would hope to get decent value for the $ as I notice some are crazy expensive and not worth it.
I always love me a beer advocate festival !!!

 

I like this but curious if there were enough brewers to support this. How long would brewery reps set aside and how many sessions would each do (it doesn’t have to be same for all, I guess)?

To add to this, perhaps the “appointments” could be capped to limit the number who can discuss live but the feed of the discussion opened up to others who are fine just watching/listening. Maybe there could be a text-based chat for the watchers though I did see the poster who said that feature was a tad busy for Untappd event.

Lastly, could have discussions based on a mix of beers sent out in box as well as those that people could obtain own their own (basically as @StoutElk_92 suggested).

So if there’s enough partners, I think this could be a cool way to give interaction to those who want it but also allow others to drop in to follow discussions that interests them as they have time.

 

That's cool. But I just think there may be subtleties there that may need looking into.

At the beginning of the lockdown I was looking into shipping options, one of which may have been Total Wine (?). On the website it did mention NJ as an option, but as I went further in I wasn't able to select beer or liquor due to my zip code. I didn't pursue it any further.

Upon further investigation it seems that only wine shipping is permitted in NJ. Maybe there's another type of license that Half Time was able to get, but I haven't heard about it yet.

 

Being some one who collects labels, caps, and glass ware I'd like to hear the breweries talk about their label designs, logo designs, choosing shirts etc. Brewers like trillium, Collective Arts, Foam, Finback and Pipe works put a lot of work into their designs. I would like to hear about that thinking, decision making, process etc.

 

This is an excellent idea. @Todd if this idea also included people from the breweries that produced the beers in the box talking about the beer, their beers, their recent experiences, etc. along with a playback version I think there would be great interest! At least from me...

 

I'd be interested if there were a mix of different beer styles or an option to pick a style (IPA, pilsner, stout, etc) and if we could know the beers in advance instead of getting a "surprise" box. Did a virtual beer fest last month where there wasn't any indication what kinds of beers would be included other than a vague "local breweries" which actually turned out to be false. Also would be cool to have interaction with brewers to heat them speak about the beers and possibly do a q & a session. The same virtual beer fest I mentioned earlier only had pre-recorded segments where the brewers spoke about the beers, and the segments were way too fast (5 to 10 mins) to enjoy the beers before they moved on to the next one.

 

Don't forget us European based beer drinkers. A curated box is fine for North American based drinkers but would probably be unavailable here due to shipping costs and US legal issues. There's also a 5-8 hour time difference in the UK and an extra hour in Continental Europe.

 

In my opinion, a "variety box" of many different styles would be much better than an "ipa box" or a "sours box" - For me, one of the most primary purposes of a festival is to explore and try new things. For the untappd festival, they ended day one with 4 hazy juice bomb ipa's in a row and my palate was WRECKED. I couldn't even finish the last one, which was supposed to be the highlight of the day. Don't get me wrong, I'm an IPA guy all the way. But two of my favorite beers from that festival were a sour and a Belgian, and I've been a staunch Belgian hater for my entire 10 year "beer snob" career. (as an early home brewer, I was taught that the taste of band-aides and bananas was BAD in beer.)

 

Good luck getting TreeHouse to participate. They don't do NUTTIN beyond direct taproom sales!
(but I was thinking, what if a bunch of us go there and buy a full case of something (probably Julius) and then somehow transfer those cases to B.A. for distribution to all of the festival participants?

 

polling - yes !

 

I agree completely. I was hoping for much great "hand holding" through the untappd tasting experience. I know that everybody's palate is different, but I wanted to learn "what nuances was the brewer attempting to achieve with the recipe/process that they chose?"

 

Three ideas that have been mentioned that I find exciting and am interested in:

A "variety box" (brewery stickers would be sweet) assuming I could receive it in MD or possibly VA.

A panel for each beer consisting of Brewery rep or brewer, beer judge and/or Cicerone to give insight on the beer and if applicable, its history, evolution or place within the style.

Having it live with a limited number of attendees asking questions while allowing all to view the answers from the panel.

 

As I understand it, CT law does not allow out-of-state beer to be shipped to CT residents. CT law DOES allow out-of-state wine to be shipped however. If someone can confirm these laws, please chime in. I'm not sure how many other states prohibit the shipment of beer, so shipping of a pre-packaged beer box to attendees will likely not work for all states. Perhaps design several regional virtual beer events with a list of beers and some time to try to gather as many as you can before attending the regional event.