What are they thinking?
Matt Guyer just called and asked me to add this store note to the Beer Yard website.
I be confusered (copyright once upon a time by C. Pietrantonio) by the thinking here. I’ve seen it happen before, but it seems particularly egregious this time.
Two of the nation’s best-known and most popular craft breweries get together to create a collaborative beer and there is great ado in the press and throughout the beer world. Okay, sounds good.
Then only 33 cases—a mere 33 cases, I repeat—are shipped to arguably the best beer market in the nation (let’s not fight about that at the moment, insert a “one of” if you must)?
And a single case of that allotment goes to the best retail outlet in the entire area, the store which has been featuring and selling craft beers and high-end imports longer and better than anyone else?
The end result, it seems to me, can only be anger and frustration among the customer base which will be directed, in part at least and wrong though it might be, at the Beer Yard and other retailers who find themselves in an equal, or worse, bind.
That makes no damned sense at all, not at the brewery level and certainly not at the local wholesale level.
If the supply is that limited, why even pretend that the beer going to be “distributed” in the normal understanding of the word? Why not instead do some sort special release at selected locations or turn it into an event of some sort, maybe even one to benefit a charity?
If hype you must, figure out how to do so without laying the burden of disappointing customers on the backs of those who have helped make your brands what they are.
Addendum: the above-referenced Carl P. informs me that he has been told that 80 cases was the total allotment for the entire state of Washington.
Oh I used to get the same clamor for my famous “tiger head” brand ale and my seasonal bock. Drunks lining up for blocks to purchase. Wish I had known about waiting lists back then.
Never considered for one moment though collaborating with that Gretz and his High wheel bicycle!
Blast you Schmidt! Let it be known that Hohenadel, Esslinger and I have been working assiduously at Esslinger Plant #2 to conspire to brew a beer whose demand will command both long lines AND a waiting list! The likes of which have never been seen nor tasted before in this fair city!
Confound you Schmidt! You and that Mountebank Gretz could never surpass my product in qulaity.