Beavertown Extravaganza

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Message BeerViking beers 9209 º places 134 º 18:10 Sat 9/9/2017 Originally posted by BeardedAvenger People should chill, all beer festivals run out of beer. That's Beavertown being naive, not me BTW. Also a lie. Plenty of beer festivals don't run out, you want to have max 10% left at closing, at a rough estimate - and even if you do run out, you do not want it to happen more than say 30 minutes before closing.
Message chriso P beers 7540 º places 736 º 18:49 Sat 9/9/2017 Originally posted by BeerViking Originally posted by BeardedAvenger People should chill, all beer festivals run out of beer. That's Beavertown being naive, not me BTW. Also a lie. Plenty of beer festivals don't run out, you want to have max 10% left at closing, at a rough estimate - and even if you do run out, you do not want it to happen more than say 30 minutes before closing. Also, a lot of festivals - especially those that close earlier on the last day - have a staff after-party so left over beer doesn't go to waste. Don't know whether they had a staff after-party for the Beavertown Extravaganza - I'd be surprised if they didn't
Message Erlangernick beers 6 º places 2 º 03:05 Sun 9/10/2017 Looks like Papa Plant was there. That makes me wish I'd been there.

Message chriso P beers 7540 º places 736 º 03:27 Sun 9/10/2017 Originally posted by chriso Don't know whether they had a staff after-party for the Beavertown Extravaganza - I'd be surprised if they didn't Yes, they did. There are pics floating around on Facebook. So they must have had stockpiled beer supplies for that.
Message Leighton P beers 33722 º places 1204 º 03:38 Sun 9/10/2017 Originally posted by chriso Originally posted by chriso Don't know whether they had a staff after-party for the Beavertown Extravaganza - I'd be surprised if they didn't Yes, they did. There are pics floating around on Facebook. So they must have had stockpiled beer supplies for that. Not sure they stockpiled. One reference I saw to the afterparty was that all the brewers were drinking Oliver's cider from the bottle (and noted that this cider was still pouring at the Oliver's stand in the last hour of the fest).
Message Leighton P beers 33722 º places 1204 º 03:53 Sun 9/10/2017 Overall, I thought the festival was excellent. Much better than I had expected. On the topic of beer shortage, I'm in the camp that understands the organiser's prerogative. At a fest like this, all they can do is project possible 'thirst'. Theoretically, there was still beer left at the end of day one. For many, that's not enough. And these many certainly let Beavertown know via social media on Friday. Seems like Beavertown took Rich's and my advice: they had the Gamma Ray (and Neck Oil) flowing freely on Saturday at many of the other brewer stands, once those stands had run out. This, I think, is how festival organisers should safeguard themselves in the event their projections are off. Maybe Beavertown's estimates actually were spot on for Friday, and the scenario played out how they wanted it; but in that case, they didn't account for the drinkers' experience, which clearly was not satisfactory for many people. For a future event, Beavertown could ask brewers to bring more beer, although logistically that gets more tricky given the overall scale of the event.
Message sebletitje beers 11868 º places 491 º 04:09 Sun 9/10/2017 Maybe not ran out if people actually took the time to drink the full glass and not throw it out half way.

Message sebletitje beers 11868 º places 491 º 04:13 Sun 9/10/2017 And also. You want to have top breweries but offer zero professional cleaning system for the glasses. That left some very dirty glasses after a while especially after some of the heavier stouts. BXLfest did this very well and a proper glass was there for each pour.
Message Leighton P beers 33722 º places 1204 º 04:13 Sun 9/10/2017 Frankly, I think the scale of the Extravganza was too grand. I understand that they want to have a world-class event, and one way to get some rep is to just have a huge event. They combined having a huge event with one that also features many of the world's best breweries (and what was the total count, 77?), and hundreds of outstanding beers. (I thought the overall level of beer quality was outstanding - probably high 3s in RB terms, for me). I suppose the broad question I ask is, what does Beavertown want an attendee's experience to be? My little tasting group hit it pretty hard, and we tried a ton of beers, maybe 150 or so over the two sessions. But what if you're just an average person attending solo? The experience is vastly different. You would try far fewer beers, and if you wanted anything special you would have spent a lot of your time queuing. (And I put to the side the question of whether trying lots of beers is a person's measure of a good beer event, given the sheer number of beers made available here and the fact that it seemed like there were many geeks present intent on trying lots of special beers. I know lots of beers is not everyone's goal, but I'll use it as my benchmark since Beavertown clearly focused on quality and variety here.) I think Beavertown could scale things back and actually make the festival better. Fewer attendees, fewer breweries, fewer unique beers (maybe look at the volume, given shortage issues). When I go to a fest, I like to leave thinking I've gotten to experience everything the event had to offer. And I don't only mean trying ALL the beers. It could be chatting to industry folks and other attendees, having more time to relax and enjoy the food, listening to the live music; or in the case of this event, attend some of the talks. (Apparently the talks were recorded and will be viewable on goodbeerhunting.) I really don't feel like I got to experience everything this fest had to offer. There was so much going on. I will say well done to Beavertown on some of the high-level logistics. They seemed to have prepared well for this event (and/or learned from past experience) in terms of processing folks at the entrance, having adequate toilet facilities, providing drinking water/rinse station. So to summarise: outstanding festival that could be better. To be better, I think they have to answer the more philosophical question of what they want an attendee's experience to be. They answer that, and sorting out the wrinkle of beer shortage should become a bit easier.
Message Leighton P beers 33722 º places 1204 º 04:24 Sun 9/10/2017 Originally posted by sebletitje Maybe not ran out if people actually took the time to drink the full glass and not throw it out half way. This is an interesting point, but I wonder if this was really an issue in the broader scheme of things. Perhaps there were some scoopers who weren't finishing their beers. This is always unfortunate, but it's kind of inevitable at big festivals with hundreds of beers. And it isn't always just beer raters who might dump a beer to save capacity for more. What about someone trying lambic for the first time who just really doesn't like it? Or someone going for a big BA stout who tries a little and likes it, but thinks it's too much for them and dumps? People don't finish beer for a variety of reasons; it's not as simple as saying they just don't take the time to drink it. I think festival organisers will account for dumping and spillage - or at least, they should. Also, the bigger a festival, the more incentive I think there is for certain types of drinkers (such as those who want to try many different beers) to not finish each pour. As I said in my other post, Beavertown could scale back the fest, focus it a bit more, and potentially alleviate this issue to some degree. And for the record, I don't think we dumped much beer at our table. I can recall two beers where we didn't finish most of the beer: that cough syrup saison thing from Three Floyds, and the buttered popcorn BA saison from Bell's.