Cleveland Beer Week Collaboration Sampler

[dpvwia]

Did anybody get one of these? My local Heinen's told me last Friday night that they didn't get state/fed approval so the 12 packs wouldn't be delivered for Saturday. I assumed this meant that nothing would happen until after Monday (first business day), but I still haven't seen them.

Dave

[rcarson]

Didnt even hear about it, what is in the 12 pak?

[JG]

As of this morning they haven't been delivered to stores yet, at least not to Acme. I've been patiently waiting since reading about it.

Here's the article.

http://www.ohio.com/news/first/104840594.html

[dpvwia]

Local Heinen's guy said they won't be available until November...

[JG]

Anybody have any luck finding them yet? I have a feeling they're going to go fast.

Jon

[dpvwia]

Heinen's guy said the last they heard it would still arrive this week...

[JG]

Here's the scoop as told to me by a manager at Acme.

Great Lakes is bottling the Beer Week 12 packs. Their bottling line has been busy with their Christmas ale. When they're done with that the collaboration sampler 12 pack will get bottled.

That might not be the reason for the delay, but there's no reason not to believe him.

Jon

[dpvwia]

I think what happened is that the bottling time on Great Lakes line was scheduled to fit into the Christmas Ale production, but then the delays in getting approval from the Ohio Liquor Control Commission and the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (as previously reported at Cleveland.com) caused the production window to close. You can't blame Great Lakes for staying on their production schedule for their #2 selling beer, especially for a seasonal brew. But I wonder where all this beer is being stored in the interim? And in what form, kegs?

What frustrates me is the total lack of information, from *anyone* in the Ohio Craft Brewers Assoc. They don't even have their own website! You know these 12 packs are going to sell like hotcakes once they show up, so EVERY FRIGGIN NIGHT after work, I have to stop in Heinen's to see if they have magically arrived or not. I can just imagine a bunch of random yuppie shoppers buying up all these 12 packs while all the beer aficionados are at work during the day! If, after 20-some visits to Heinen's and a month of waiting, I don't get one of these 12 packs, I'm going to blow a gasket!

Cheers,

Dave

p.s. so far, the best place to get up-to-date info is, sadly, Heinen's Facebook page, where people have been requesting updates, and Heinen's at least keeps responding that they don't yet know

[dpvwia]

From the Beacon Journal:

"The sampler pack is now expected to arrive in stores between Thanksgiving and Christmas."

"The delay related to how the beer was being packaged and distributed. Since the beers were made at different breweries, they couldn’t be packaged at one of the sites, Najeway said. Instead, the beer has to be shipped to a distributor who will assemble the 12-pack and then send it to stores. Liquor officials also objected to the use of the term ”strong ale” in describing one of the beers."

http://the330.com/dining/belated-beer-w ... -holidays/

[JG]

I saw the same article in the Beacon on Thursday.

Go figure.
You can buy a 24 oz. can of Camo Black Ice malt liquor - at 10 %ABV - for $1.25 and that's fine. But use the word "strong" to describe a craft beer and they get a wedgie.

[dpvwia]

Some new information, and entertaining commentary:

http://blog.bobbylikesbeer.com/2010/11/ ... d-12-pack/

This blog posting poses a question that has been on my mind for a while now: what condition is this beer going to be in by the time it is finally released? The author tasted and reviewed each of the beers 2 months ago and in this posting adds his thoughts on the likelihood of the beer surviving in the 12 packs.

Part of the posting:

"...Back in April, at an OCBA meeting at the Buckeye Beer Engine, the project was conceived and brewers picked names out of a hat to decide the collaborations. The resulting beers were formulated by those brewers and produced over the next 5 months, all targeting an October release. But the packaging was not approved by the state in time, so the October release date came and went. To add insult to injury, the OCBA did a less-than stellar job communicating the delay and folks lined up outside Heinen’s Supermarkets on October 9th, waiting for the doors to open to claim their 12 pack. Over the next month, the communication didn’t get much better, as it seemed every weekend held a promise of the release and another disappointment. There were even rumors of waiting lists at Heinen’s and a general feeling of disorganization and misinformation surrounding the project (even the hard-working Heinen’s employees I talked to said they are still confused about when the pack is coming out and what happened).

During the fiasco, we kept hearing in market-friendly speak about how “this was an extraordinary collaboration – the biggest in the world” and how the Ohio Department of Liquor Control was to blame with their slow processes and draconian rules about what gets approved and what doesn’t. But, let’s be real. Sure there were problems with the State’s unexpected rejection of the term “strong ale” and the blurb about charitable beneficiaries of the sale, but the biggest problem to overcome was time. There just wasn’t enough breathing room to assure this journey into the unknown would be a successful one. The organizers of this 12 pack, despite their good intentions, hold a share of the blame because they did not hedge their bet by having a backup plan, and, most of all, foreseeing the risk associated with such an ambitious and pioneering project. So, many of us thought we would never see the project become a reality. However, last week news broke that the long-overdue package has been approved for a release sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas (no firm release date has been set as of the publishing of this article).

As a beer fan and Ohio resident, I’m ecstatic that there is a desire to do something new, even something so ambitious it had the potential to put us on the national map overnight. However, as an advocate of beer quality over anything (I support measures like freshness dating, cold-shipping, cold storage and canning beer), I’m disappointed by the decision to go ahead and release what I consider to be a compromised product without acknowledging that the beer has suffered or making a statement to the contrary. You see, the beers for this 12 pack were formulated and produced over three months ago and, quite frankly, some of the beers in this 12 pack are past their prime. And I don’t want to buy old beer unless it’s one of the few high-alcohol styles that cellar well. Do you?..."

[dpvwia]

Heinen's has signs up indicating the samplers will arrive sometime this week, they don't know when.

[dpvwia]

And...shafted once again! This is getting ridiculous. I assume these 12 packs will come out the day after I leave OH for Christmas vacation!

[JG]

The manager at the Acme I shop at is getting sick of me, as well as others, asking. He's come to the conclusion that it just might not happen.

What a shame.

[JG]

I almost hesitate to post this but... The ABJ says the 12 pack sampler should be in stores now. I hope they kept it cold.