I got about 14 hours of sleep so i’m all bright eyed and bushy tailed today.
Thanks to all the Goose/Lakeshore Bev people on hand to help out, super extra thanks to all the Binny’s employees, and mondo amazing thanks to all of you for coming out and making this a super successful event. Bonus points to the guy who apparently brought 4 pounds of bacon.
Overall, i think it went very well considering the exponential growth of the event. Here’s a video recap of it (and you can totally see my Youth Code shirt in the intro shot :D)
That said, i welcome constructive criticism & suggestions on how to make this event better next year. Please feel free to add your own, but try not to threadshit.
It seems like the biggest complaint is allocations. I’m going to pull out my Unpopular Opinion card and address this one last time. This is not thrown towards anyone in particular.
Let’s get things sparkling clear right now: Muling & trading are the biggest detriments to the beer community at large and these kinds of events in particular. These two activities are directly responsible for the giant lines, cut allocations, and commoditization of these beers.
I cannot tell the difference between a customer that really wants to buy and drink the beer and a customer bringing his or her friends to scoop up as much as they can. Not out of 950 people. All are customers. Had i announced an allocation (say, 3 or 4 of everything in advance,) who do you think would be there first? And where you do think that beer would go? Why should it only be for people who have the time to wait in line for 7+ hours? Why not the person who just heard about the beer on the news that morning and wanted to drop by and see what all the fuss was about? Do they not get beer? Are they not as important as your trading partner? Why?
Most importantly, as Ground Zero for this release and co-creator of the monster that has become the Black Friday beer craze, i see it as my duty to get these beers into the hands of as many people as i can. That means more than just BA folk. There’s a whole world of people out there that like to drink beer that dont bother with the sites like this. They are just as welcome to buy beer from me as you are.
All that said, i will always allocate to serve ALL of my customers, not just some. From the first in the line to the last, i will do my best to serve everyone fairly, and i will not apologize for that, nor will i change how i do it. If you really want to see some change, stop muling and trading, and buy only what you’ll drink. Leave some for someone else.
One thing i’m going to do is look into an event license for the parking lot to open up the possibility of bottle shares. No promises, but it’s something i’m going to explore.
Extremely well said. I saw Vav over at Goose Island Brewpub after the event drinking what looked like an IPA and gave him a pat on the back for the job well done. He moves more BCS than any other store in the world and it’s a huge responsibility.
He made some great points in the post. I was following the thread for the fun of it because complaining is what beer nerds are really good at.
Binny’s has also posted a video re-capping the day on YouTube. You should watch it and look out for yours-truly. Another should come out from Goose Island in the coming days and I’ll try to link to it as well. Here’s last year’s.