Padre games are in the $55 range including the ticket to the game. Charger games are in the $110 range including ticket.
I wasn't there and will admit that up front...but how the hell do you run out of tortillas? Considering how ridiculously cheap they are (especially relative to the cost of the event), wouldn't whoever is responsible for the catering just bring an extra few dozen? There are various levels of failure as it pertains to brewery food events, but running out of something as basic as tortillas seems like it goes beyond "a decision you as the consumer disagree with" and zooms right into "complete inability to plan an event."
haha yeah figures. i ate a burrito in my rush from work to the release knowing i was going to be hungry and pissed and gave my food to my friend instead
They weren't normal flat tortillas. They were more like a homemade thin pancake made from corn meal about 5" in diameter.
I thought u guys were gonna follow us to taco bell after to order tortillas Anyways the bread pudding was pretty tasty.
Corn meal is cheap, and it's still inexcusable. If you feel like you got your money's worth, then great, but giving breweries a pass on complete failures to plan ahead and/or contract with someone who's competent at event planning doesn't bode well for the future of these types of events.
I'm going to assume those who went are going to justify the extra $45 as a convenience charge for being able to purchase multiple 4-packs. Thing is, that was never announced and GF failed to deliver on what was advertised. I'm really surprised they're going this route. I got the sense from them that their focus was going to be on beer and they would leave food/dining to other breweries.
I think the food pairing is dumb. I wouldn't even mind if they charged $50 for the 4 tasters and the opportunity to buy the beer. Food served on small plates in a big warehouse without anyplace to sit down doesn't do much for me.
Breweries continue to do overpriced "dinners" with bottle releases and continually fail in the execution and continually sell out yet people want to blame the brewery. Err ok.
This is what kills me. I desperately wanted Silva Stout. But I refuse to encourage this business model of stupid ass events in order to purchase some beer. It's the reason I was so disappointed that it sold out. People are willing to throw their money away in order to buy rare beer. Now, they're only going to keep on doing it.
I agree with you completely, but if people are comfortable paying a large premium just for access to the beer, the failure on the food side isn't even really an issue. It's been discussed quite a bit here that a lot of rare beer is, relatively speaking, underpriced - this is a manifestation of that theory, in that people will shell out money for the "dinner" just to get the beer. I would rather the brewery just charge a premium for the beer than hide behind a poorly executed dinner, but the end result is roughly the same.
I know that everybody has their own preferences when it comes to beer tastes, but it seems to be most prominent with the strong stouts. When I had the Silva on tap during SD Beer Week (they had some left over a day after the Green Flash event), I was not blown away. I really dug the smoothness, but it was a bit too much of a bourbon explosion for me. I can see why somebody that likes the bourbon taste would be into it, though.
I agree with all the comments about food being part of an event lame and all that, however it's just part of going to an event these days. You pay if you think the beer is worth it, you don't if you prefer not to. Otherwise this event sounds like it was a good one, and the extra 4 packs really made it worth it. I'll add that the first event (SDBW 2011) was even more frustrating given that the desert course (I can't even remember what it was) incorporated Silva Stout. Talk about wasting a great beer. They could have used Double Stout, no one would have known the difference. So I definitely consider this year's event an improvement. Unfortunately I couldn't make it.
I just walked into the brewery and bought a case of Silva Stout last year. Was delicious! haha. I think I shared/traded half of it. Such a good beer, ready to drink barrel aged beer (since they blend it to perfection). I'd take it over KBS any day. Hope to see some sleepin with shaggy around. :/
GF distributed this to local stores in SD last week. Love the "you must come to our party and buy our shitty food if you want this beer - it won't be distributed" bait and switch!
That is BS. What is it selling for per bottle? If it is +/- $5 per bottle, we paid $65 for a street taco and a piece of dessert.
$5.99 - $7.99 so far that I have seen. Green Flash was at several places Friday promoting it - it's an official distribution. Sure, we paid $5.00 per bottle, but paid more in the end considering the extra $45 for the event.
I almost never complain about the way breweries handle bottle releases (in fact I think I was defending GF earlier in this thread), yet once I saw bottles hitting shelves at that pricepoint I felt pretty jipped. Bad move on GF's part.
They'll keep doing it if they can get away with it. Been saying this all along, but just give me the bottles. All that other stuff is optional.
This is really annoying. Pretty much an upfront lie on the part of Green Flash to sell tickets to that garbage event.
That's irrelevant and not a debate that needs to be revisited at this moment. The issue at hand is Green Flash lying to consumers by saying that the only way to get Silva and Shaggy was to go to this $65 event and then turning around weeks later and selling it to stores. I think many people, including me, would have skipped the event if we knew the bottles would be available around town.
Just to play devil's advocate here (this is not what I believe - just doing the debate club thing), perhaps they decided to bottle up more after the event took place, or they made the decision to distribute to local stores after the event. In that case, they didn't really lie, but you'd think that they would offer an explanation. On a possibly related note, they've been a lot less "active" in social media as of late, it seems.
Like you said, GF, from the get go, was giving the impression that this was going to be an exclusive release with a $45 cover charge. The up sell seemed dishonest to me all along. It's because of this willingness to acquire beer at all costs that breweries seem confident about tacking on additional charges. Personally, that doesn't jive with me so even though I want the beer, I'll skip a release altogether.
That's how they get ya. I feel vindicated now by choosing to skip this BS exclusive release. That, and GF has never thrown an event worth attending at least not at the price point they charge.
The bottles I've seen in the store had bottling dates of December 2012. I'm pretty sure it was the same run of bottles that was released at the party.
I guess if you ended up leaving with 24 bottles (4 bottles included with $64.29 ticket + 5 additional 4 packs available at $20/4 pack) then the cost per bottle was $6.85. Still, not bad and it was simple to get the bottles. The dishonesty is annoying but if I remind myself of the math and the ability to buy a lot more bottles than I would have otherwise been able to get, it's not so bad.
