Artificial Scarcity

I was reminding my sales rep to send me a case of Bell’s Mercury whenever it gets released, and he told me that he’d have to check and see if I was in the top 80 Bell’s accounts because that’s how Bell’s wants to distribute this release.

That’s how they’re doing it, then? I usually like Bells but fuck this business practice. Why the hell does a 5% belgian ale need to be such a limited release? No one would care about these mediocre belgian ales if it wasn’t for the artificial scarcity. I’m glad my rep finally got real with me so I can tell the consumers how Bell’s is playing this.

The purpose of this whole series seems to be to put pressure on accounts to buy more Bell’s drafts than they normally would. It’s making me feel inclined to quit buying their drafts entirely.

Edit: To be clear, it’s the brewery that I am disappointed in, less the distributor... As far as I know, this is how Bell’s wants this series to be distributed. Based on top accounts over 4 months prior case equivalent sales.

To play devil’s advocate, how should a brewery or distributor decide which accounts get their limited release beers?

I think the other issue here is a brewery creating hype by releasing a ’special series’ of beers, knowing there are people who will buy it just because they see a new label. FWIW, I have been underwhelmed 3 out of 3 times with this planet series.

I see both sides on this.. but really, should a brewery not reward their accounts that sell the most beer when they have a limited product?

It sounds like your qualms are with the limited release/series/etc niche market as is. Which I think is certainly an interesting thing to discuss in and of itself. But if a brewery has a limited run, a sales rep is likely doing the most fair thing by offering up the beer to their best accounts first, no?

I actually think an even shadier practice is trying to make a limited release beer stretch too far.. reps are showing up at stores with loose bottles (Half case, partial case, etc) instead of finding a way to get it out there fairly.

That’s almost a bigger artificial scarcity type tactic, I think.

Agreed with Alum here. I don’t really see a fairer way to get things done and rationing special releases to the point where a store gets fractions of a case is way worse, IMO.

We are the number one bells account in Iowa and only get a case of that planet stuff as well. Not mad about it, if it wasn’t scarce I don’t think they would have any market interest in the series based on my experience with the last couple ones I’ve tried.

My main point is that there is no reason for this to go only to top 80 in the first place. It’s a 4.8% belgian ale brewed by one of the biggest craft breweries in the US, I’d be surprised if they simply did not have the ability to brew more, especially considering we got several cases of Mars.

The purpose of this whole series is to put pressure on accounts to buy more Bell’s. It’s not about rewarding accounts, it’s dangling a carrot. I’m not going to bend over backwards to get this one limited release, no thanks, and the whole practice just leaves a terrible taste in my mouth for the brewery.

Also, the top 80 metric is ridiculous. How many of those are big lot grocery stores, 50? You’d rather have your special release bottle sitting alongside BMC, it sits on the shelf until one beer geek finds it and buys the whole lot? Craft is a fraction of these grocery stores business, where at a specialty store it’s what we sell exclusively.

I think we’re kinda going after 2 different things here.

I’m taking the amount of beer they made at face value. That’s the amount of beer Bells chose to make and fit into their production schedule. I’m taking the numbers your rep was given to distro at face value as well. What said rep is doing seems like the most fair system there can possibly be.

You are saying Bells should have made more. That they’ve built that scarcity into the beer by not making more.

I empathize. Limited releases cause a lot of unnecessary strain on the system, in general. It’d be so much easier on everyone (except the drinker located out of state) if they (any brewery) kept these releases exclusively local/in-state.

I agree w/ TheAlum that it’s probably as fair as any other method though it’d be nice if reps would make a note as to which top retailers/chains don’t move such limited beers well.

Wasn’t great anyways. Had to fill out a form too because I bought it in a county in michigan that had known cases of chipping glass at the cap.

Limited exposure on my end - but hasn’t this always been the metric for limited releases?