Or they could be just taking some time to get their shit together.

Cigar City completely pulled all of their out of state shipping a couple of years ago and, as was mentioned above, is just now getting back into the Atlanta market, albeit on a limited basis.

I think some of these breweries are simply victims of their own success. When I've experienced too rapid a growth with my business, people always say "well, that's a good problem to have", but really it's not. It's a pain in the ass and frustrating as hell.

They're still going to be available, just more expensive and in limited quantities. "Limited" as in "something less than a case or two per person." Which isn't great news, but then paying relatively little for a case of the world's best fucking DIPA always felt like too good a bargain to last. $3.50 a can for tallboys of THAT beer, is cheap.

Sucks, but understandable.

This sounds right. Russian River pulled out of Washington State last year when they decided that they had spread themselves too thin and needed the beer to meet local demand. They wrote a long letter to Washington customers explaining that there was no way in their existing brewery to increase capacity, customers were already frustrated at how quickly product sold out, and that they needed to exit some markets to be able to better serve local demand. Apparently, 50% of their revenues still come from sales at their brewpub. Sounds like Alchemist just made the opposite decision.

And you're spot on about the difficulties of growing businesses. Tons of businesses fail not because they aren't making money or finding sufficient demand for their products, but because they don't have enough capital to support their growth or don't properly manage working capital during high growth periods.

Alchemist's space is WAY different inside than Russian River's (quick moment to bask in the glory of realizing that I've been to both). It's like a counter with 1 tap, a rack of t-shirts, and a doorway to a SMALL space to stand alongside their brew room. The "self tour" space has tall tables for 2, like 4 of them, and space for another 10 people to stand tops. That's the whole deal. No food, 1 kind of beer, no permit to pour full pints. I guess they just decided not to rectify that and commit to the in-house revenue model.

I figured it would be very different. Also, it is hardly surprising that a brewer located in a town with a population of 5,000 would choose to prioritize wholesale distribution over retail distribution.

No shit. So very different from Santa Rosa. Still, so many people drive there just to see the Alchemist that honestly they would've been fine going hard on the food / pub angle.

I don't know where you'd be getting a case as most of the liquor stores up there where they sell it only limit you to one or two 4 packs.

I'm hoping that this means they'll widen their distribution area to include other states since people won't be buying them all up at the brewery.

Me too.

Very productive lunchtime excursion to the liquor store today. Scored bottles of:

Goose Island Gillian
Goose Island Halia
Goose Island Juliet
Russian River Pliney the Elder
George T. Stagg Bourbon
Stagg Jr. Bourbon

Down to 1 can of Topper now. Hard times. I got very, very happily used to having it around. Fuck.

I have 4 left. Almost thought about driving up there today to get a case.

You see that post on FB? "Please don't come up today - already more people in line than we have beer for. Come tomorrow or weds."

yeah but they also said everyone that was in line got beer.

Full Topper cases available for $75 at a few retailers while they're temporarily closing their shop:

Updates

Just had some of this and it was so much more delicious than I expected. Lots of roasty malts and... yum!


And then, I bought a bottle of this:


Looking forward to this one. This is one of the best local breweries, IMO.

That second one looks like it might be fun.

Damn. I saw these in my local store last weekend. I think they were around $25 each. WTF?

I went out to drink beer tonight, since I won't be enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow for various reasons.
I consumed Deschutes Chaisin' Freshies 2013 Amarillo, Green Flash Hop Odyssey Cedar Plank Pale Ale, New Belgium Accumulation White IPA and Stone Enjoy by 12.13.13.
The Stone was the most remarkable, since it really didn't fit the typical Stone beer, and was more Floral than bitter.
I really enjoy the the New Belgium Accumulation, but it would have been a much better Summer beer than a Winter beer. It isn't remotely a holiday beer, and nothing about it screams winter.

Goose Island Black Friday event will be its annual shitshow tomorrow. Stores were supposed to hold their allotments of BCS, Coffee, Barleywine and Proprietor's but of course they didn't. All my secret spots I planned to hit tomorrow have already sold out. So happy Surly is in town though because I am over chasing and fretting about beer and I'm surely not getting up at 4:30 to wait in line at the downtown Binny's locations.

So I was in St Louis last week visiting friends for Thxgvng. They live in a high rise downtown with a grocery store on the ground floor. Downtown STL has maybe 10,000 permanenet residents, so it was DEAD all week. Weds evening I was buying wine and I spied 2 cases of Burb Co and 1 case of Burb Co Intelligentsia (the coffee version) behind the counter. I asked about them, they said they were holding them til Friday. "What time friday?" 6. "6 AM?" Yeah. So I got up friday at like 9, took the elevator down, and got some. They said 1 4-pack per customer, which would've sucked because they had 2 kinds. But I sweet talked the lady into letting me get one of each... "One of them is for her!" (pointing to my 4 yr old daughter). It worked. There was no line, no fuss, nothing. I had one of the coffee ones and it was great. The other 7 are stashed.

Had one of these last week. It was intense, so memorable. It mellowed as I drank it. Very high quality beer, but not something I would want to drink on a regular basis.

Fucking smokestack series has so many amazing, heavy hitters. If I had a resume like that I could do anything I wanted.

I've seen that Rye on Rye but havent picked it up yet, might have to fix that this weekend.

I had a fucking fantastic Brett beer that my friend Terry brewed: I'm literally still thinking about it a week later.

Shiiit. I wish I wish I wish.

tragedy