Growlers: The Session No. 60 - Rappy Beeryhood

This is my first go at The Session. When the subject was announced, I posted on Stan Hieronymous' blog that I thought the subject was a bit too US-centric. However, being an occasionally contrary sort, I have had some dealings with them so thought I'd break my Session cherry.

That pic below first appeared on here in February 2010, the last year Russian River Brewing Co. made the contents available for sale in growlers. A friend was heading to London for a trip, and thoughtfully brought the beer here for us to suck up. At the brewpub the beer sold out in a day, after hordes mobbed the place, with queues the length of 4th St in Santa Rosa.

The beer was Pliny The Younger, and 2010 was the last year is was available to take away from the pub. The vile secondary market in this beer (and others) prompted RRBC to make the beer brewery-only, which didn't stop some idiots from trying to smuggle it out to sell on eBay.

The pic was taken at Victoria Station, on the balcony outside the Wetherspoons above the station concourse. We drank it at The Rake in London, friends sharing a great beer, which is the way it should be.

I wonder what happened to the growler?

(I've only ever bought growlers myself one time, at Bierkraft in NYC, in 2006. I think that was the first time I bought a Captain Lawrence beer. This post is sub-titled Rappy Beeryhood in honour of the friend who got us the Pliny the Younger)

A Confederacy Of Dunces

I'm looking at you, HateBeer and TwatAdvocate. Natalie Cilurzo of Russian River relates the latest sorry episode of spoogebeerian gaming the system...

Pliny The Younger on EBAY - Seriously?

I've seen comments in threads on your pages where members who couldn't get to the brewpub were offering fervent wishes that maybe some of the 2011 batch of Pliny The Younger might be smuggled out and passed along to those less fortunate. And lo! it came to pass that one arsehole managed to do just that, and he putteth it on eBay.

You can sense the exasperation in Natalie's blog post. She saw their breast cancer beer hoovered up by these locusts, some of whom are now reaping $400 prices on eBay - there's one up there now. The point, however, is that Russian River asked beer lovers to respect their efforts to get this year's PtY to a wider audience, yet they're catching out visitors trying to get the beer out of the pub by hook or by crook. eBay seem to have removed the offending beer, and I hope they've banned the prick who tried to sell it.

Really, if these beer fanboy sites are to actually "respect beer" (the rallying call of TwatAdvocate), they should be jumping on this kind of thing - lock down threads, ban members, send a message they won't tolerate idiots who ignore the pleas of the brewers and try and feed this disgusting secondary market for their own profit.

I don't believe that brewers, by and large, generate hype for these beers (notable exception: Three Floyds). It all comes from what I've seen described as the Pokémon effect ("gotta tick 'em all!") generated by these fanboy sites.

Clean up your act, before its too late. These people don't have any business being anywhere near beer.

Ho Ho Ho! Russian River Upsets Spoogebeerians For Xmas

Highly-regarded Californian brewer Russian River has upset members of the beer trading community by announcing their programme for sales of seasonal Double IPA Pliny The Elder in 2011.

If you were reading back in the Spring, you'd have seen that a 'growler' (64 US fl. oz. container) of the stuff made it here. RRBC launch the beer each year saying it should last "longer than a day, but less than a week". In 2010, it didn't even last a day, as queues round the block exhausted the batch in record tine. Much of it ended up being traded by the vile spoogebeerians who infest a dark corner of the beer-drinking community. RRBC was also targeted when it released a special beer for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and spoogebeerians bought up the lot.

For the 2011 Pliny The Younger release, RRBC has taken steps to ensure Pliny The Younger is available in the pub for 2 weeks, and that means they won't be filling any growlers. As Natalie Cilurzo says in the RRBC blog,

kegs will be allocated to last for exactly 2 weeks. Therefore, we may run out at the pub each day, but will have more the following day for 2 weeks. It will be available in 10 oz. glasses only- no growlers or bottles to go. This will allow more beer enthusiasts like you, as well as our regular customers, to enjoy some Younger this year! And we won't see it on Ebay!

Predictably, this has exercised some of the BeerAdvocate 'community', who've have taken their heads out of their backsides arguing over whether a hefeweizen is an ale (see Ron Pattinson's post, but be prepared to lose your will to live) for long enough to notice what RRBC are doing.

Never mind a brewer is plugged in to the local community and wants to ensure regulars and locals can drink their beer, this isn't good enough. Some BAs think that the brewery needs to consider massive expansion so they can sell into all 50 US states. One thought that RRBC needed the trading market driven by these selfish buggers to build business. Yeah, right. Like a hole in the head. A few voices of reason surfaced, but the sense of entitlement that comes off some of these people is nauseating.

So, a craft brewer strikes a blow against the Grinches of the spoogebeer trading collective. Hopefully they won't be the last.

Joy on earth, peace and goodwill to all men*, ho ho ho and buy the Frank Sidebottom box set! Merry Christmas!

*but not spoogebeerians.

Spooge Beer, And Ways & Means...

Some in the blogosphere (who may, perhaps, have been ennobled by BGBW) expand their beer experience by travelling to the source to try rare beers, such as... ooo, I dunno, Russian River Pliny the Younger.

Some, blessed with contacts, and calm of demeanour, wait for such beer to come to them... And lo, it cometh to pass that an growler of such spooge, for which an host did queue for two blocks around the brewpub lo for an day as the sun measureth time, and for those whom god did not smile upon, lo they did gnasheth their teeth and wail and proclaim, "now we'll have to pay over the odds on eBay!!"

This pic was taken at lunchtime at Victoria Station, away from the mortal host, and lo, it was drunketh in all its 11% glory at The Rake.

Its good to have friends.