How to Always Get Tickets to Beer Fests

The Firestone Walker Invitational is coming up so I figured now would be a good time to talk to all of you about buying tickets to beer fests that sell out quickly.  It can be tricky to snag these tickets so here are a few tips to help you during any ticket sale, not just the Invitational.

#1 Read.  

Read, read, read, and reread.  Read the instructions.  Understand them.  Understand that you need to know the rules.  You may not need to know 90% of them, but I bet one or two apply to you so read them all.  If you buy one ticket for yourself and your friend doesn’t get one you will be attending this event solo.  This goes for emails after you have tickets as well.  If you send an email later asking for an exception because you "didn't know" your email will get printed out and piled up neatly next to the toilet. 

#2 If you don’t agree with a rule, don’t complain.  

This isn’t your mom’s house.  You’re not going to get your way if you bitch and moan.  It’s all there on the website.  If you didn’t know about it, please see rule number 1. 

#3 You may not get tickets.  

Let that sink in for a minute.  You may come away from this sale empty handed.  You decided that you wanted to go to this beer fest.  Keep in mind this isn’t a mutual decision.  Have you heard the expression “10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag”?  That’s what happens if everybody who wants to go gets to go.  You didn’t make the cut.  It’s nothing personal.  You’re disappointed you didn’t get to go.  Life is full of disappointments, but at the end of the day you didn’t get to go because someone else that wanted to go got their tickets first.  Maybe even by a millisecond.  You didn’t get fucked.  You didn’t get raped.  You just didn’t get tickets and life will go on.  You'll spend the weekend doing what you do most weekends.  Smoking weed in your mom's basement.  

#4 Don’t be an asshole.  

It’s ok to be disappointed, or maybe even sad.  Anger?  No, that’s stupid.  Even if you are mad maybe go for a walk for once.  Do whatever you have to do, but keep off the internet.  Email, twitter, facebook, instagram, are not places for you right now.  All you’re going to do is abuse people that are there to help you.  They are there to help you with all kinds of information, but they can’t help you get tickets because there aren’t any, and they are too busy to give you tissues.  That other guy that loves beer got them just before you.  I hear you man, it sucks, but harassing people isn’t going to change anything.  It's only going to make you sound like a lunatic.  It's just beer.

"It's not JUST beer bro"  Crazy how I read your mind huh?  Yes it's just beer and there is tons of great beer all around you.  This is the best time to be alive as a craft beer fan and people have the nerve to complain about it.  To those people I say, fuck you.  We don't need your shitty attitudes around here.  I wish we could blacklist all of the people that talk shit after ticket sales because these are 100% the douche bags nobody wants at the fests.  When you do get tickets you cut in lines, you complain when a brewery runs out of a beer, and you just act like a self entitled prick all the way around.  I like cool people at a beer fest and those people aren't cool.  They suck and I hope they feel they are too cool for this event so we don't have to deal with their annoying asses.

#6 If you actually made it this far and you're not mad at the clickbait title I do have a couple of tips for you.  

Make sure you have signed up for Eventbrite, Brown Paper Tickets, or whatever the seller is ahead of time.  Make sure your credit card info is current and saved.  Use everything at your disposal, phones, laptops, desktops, or even friends that can’t or don’t want to go.  Last but not least if it says "unavailable" that does not mean sold out.  If people are using multiple devices and they secure a lot of tickets they will become available again in a few minutes.  Keep refreshing till it says sold out.  I have friends that have never missed a year using these methods, but if it doesn’t work you can do what I do.  Lie to yourself “Oh man, it’s going to be so hot, glad I’ll be in A/C”, “I’m probably better off not spending the money”, or my favorite “maybe they have media passes”.  They don’t.  Well… they do, but for me they don’t.

Lost Abbey Doesn't Owe You A Fucking Thing

It’s really hard being a customer these days.  If there isn't enough for me, there must be a problem.  If things don’t go exactly to plan or mistakes happen, well that just won’t do.  What about ME?!?!  Apologies?  That's not good enough.

Lost Abbey made some mistakes.  You can read about the whole story here along with what I believe is a sincere apology.  Mistakes were made, people were inconvenienced, and time was wasted.  In the Instagram comments you’ll find a variety of sad tales and angry threatening messages.

What I find the most fascinating about this whole ordeal is the reaction people are having.  What if you got shitty service at a restaurant?  Would you keep going back the next day and trying again?  At a certain point you have to ask yourself “what the fuck is wrong with me?”  How many of these people screaming their heads off about how unfair it is will be back next year?  Every single one of them without question.  

If the drive thru line is too long at Taco Bell, you’re like “naw” and you drive off.  If you show up to your local brewery an hour early for their anniversary party and there are two hundred people in front of you, you get upset.  You just found out your true love has a bunch of other lovers.  

It’s the time for you to either:  

(A) Put it into perspective and understand that this is the reality of the situation.  Nobody intentionally wronged you.  Nobody's health is being threatened you’re just being inconvenienced.  

(B) Make a scene and embarrass yourself.

It’s really the minority of craft beer fans that choose B, but when they choose B they go HARD.  This is a classic toxic relationship.  You spend hours on-line cycling between anger and sadness and in the end it's because you love her so much.  If it was this much work to get a 6 pack of PBR tallboys you would just say "I'm out, I'm switching to boxed wine".

We live in the Yelp generation.  If you can get enough eyeballs on your biased word vomit of a review you’ll probably get some free shit.  Would you go back if it was truly a horrible time?  Hell no.  That is what I don’t get about the anger I see on social media about breweries.  Every year people bitch and moan about ticket sales.  It’s always someone’s fault and in the end they ALWAYS come back again.

Online ticket sales for extremely in demand beer fests and beer releases have essentially turned into a lottery.  If the page won’t load and then you see it’s sold out, you lost.  The world isn’t out to get you.  If it’s on Brown Paper Tickets you’ll say it should be on Eventbrite or vise versa.  It was in my cart blah blah blah.  They all take a shit when they get a lot of traffic and magically everything sells.  Then the next year it’s the same cycle.  Win or whine.

Would you keep buying Duck Duck Gooze if it wasn’t good (and you couldn’t just sell it)?  Do you feel like you owe Lost Abbey anything?  No you don’t.  You don’t owe them anything and they don’t owe you a fucking thing.  They are just trying to sell their beer.  Don't buy it.  I dare you.  Do you think they wanted this to happen?  Fuck no.  This is a nightmare.  I can tell you with 100% certainty that everybody there is sick of this shit.  So how about being an adult.  Be patient or stop being a customer.  That's what adults do.

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Worst Stuff

Beer Awards Are Worthless

You’ve seen them before.  Beer cases proudly displaying all of the many achievements earned by the beers inside the package.  After a while you’re blind to them.  Have you ever bought a beer just because of all the awards it’s won?  I’m ashamed to admit that early in my beer drinking life I have.  This stuff really works for marketing, but do we really know what goes into the process of deciding what beer wins?  I remember when I was a teenager I was talking to an older friend of mine that worked at a car dealership.  I was telling him about a particular truck I wanted.  He says to me “you don’t want that, it’s garbage”.  I said “It won all of these awards…”  He cut me off and said “Those awards don’t mean anything”.  I remember being surprised.  How can that be?  How can an award not mean anything.  Then I started to realize that it seemed like every product had won some type of award and I didn’t have a clue what the judging process was.  If you really think about why an Olympic gold medal is special it’s because of the process.  If the process isn’t exactly the way it should be, there is no way the result can be accurate.

If you check out the World Beer Cup website you’ll find some interesting info.  This year 1907 breweries entered 6596 beers from 96 beer styles and they were judged by 253 people.  Fees basically boil down to 160 bucks a beer which totals $1,055,360 in fees collected.  That number is pretty startling, but you have to assume that a beer competition started by the Craft Brewer’s Association which is non profit must put the proceeds to good use.  Also, that 160 bucks is a drop in the bucket when you compare it to the money an award like that can generate.  If you’re sending garbage beer to the WBC, then I guess you can consider that 160 a nice donation to the CBA.  The Great American Beer Festival is another event and competition put on by the CBA, so my gut is telling me that those events get a pass.

When it starts to get strange is the local awards.  It’s very easy to find for profit beer competitions that are judged by dudes looking for free beer and ran by guys pocketing serious cash.  I’m not that worried about these competitions being for profit.  After all, the breweries themselves are for profit.  My only concern is are the results accurate.  When you check out their websites you don’t get the same transparency as the bigger competitions and when you inquire about specifics behind the judging process you get treated like an asshole.

I started looking into one of our local beer competitions and there wasn’t a lot of info online.  On social media they bragged about over 1000 entries, but when I asked about exactly how many I was told they didn’t have that number.  I asked who were the judges, how many judges there were, and what were their qualifications.  I was only told “BJCP certified judges, brew masters and industry professionals”.  My questions about the economics of the event were basically met with “This is a professionally run competition” which is fine, I just wish that there was no issue with my questions.  I don’t mind what the answers were.  The fact that you don’t want to answer them is what scares me.  Are there any judges that don’t want to be named because they are afraid?  It’s ridiculous.  The fact that the LA IPA fest at Mohawk Bend feels like a more legitimate beer competition is scary to me.  

I put the word out that I wanted to talk to a judge.  The first judge that messaged me definitely thought I wanted to discredit him as a judge.  He went on and on about his qualifications and then I just asked him if he was paid and he never messaged me back.

I had honestly given up hope when I got a random message on Facebook.  “Hey dude, I saw your post asking for some feedback on the [removed] comp. I judged it and can share my experience if your interested or have questions.”  We talked about judging and the competition and then he said “The last couple years I've questioned how this is all organized. The people seemed like they outsourced it to the [removed] folks, who seemed a little clueless. That would be my only complaint. Though, I'd like to see the money used to get more judges, provide a better breakfast and even a dinner (ya it can go late).”  “You ever judge beer? Ideally you have a group of judges on one beer. In a category that’s do-able.  My category was 20-some beers with me and another judge. Took 6 hours with a break for lunch and the [removed] people thought we could do more. Personally anything around 12 beers in a day kills my sense to judge/taste. I would of like a total of 4 judges on my category to get through them correctly.  The style guidelines are from BA but the scoresheet are BJCP style (long form) which makes no sense to me.  Not even sure if brewers get the scoresheet/comments back…  Honestly didn't see any category with more than two judges”

Are breweries getting their money’s worth out of these awards?  If they are boosting sales the answer is 100% yes.  Maybe 50 bucks each beer along with the price of the beer and shipping is not a lot of money, but when you think that they collected at least 50K would you expect more than that out of the judging process.  I believe the judges are trying to do the best job they can, but ironically the money isn’t going to them.  It’s going to the people actively trying to spend as little of it as possible so they can pocket the rest.

It doesn’t bother me that these people make money.  We should all make money.  In fact, I’m going to start my own beer competition.  On Saturday June 18th the LA Beer Guild is having a beer fest for LA Beer Week.  I think this is a perfect opportunity to have the Worst Beer Blog Intergalactic beer competition.  I am going to name the best beer in the entire universe (from those who enter).  Entering is easy.  Just have a check for 25 dollars made out to cash.  I will collect the check and give you a receipt (business expense, write that shit off).  After we complete your transaction I will judge your beer.  I’ll give you a score sheet, this will tell you where you went wrong in life.  Maybe you should’ve stayed in school.  Maybe it’s not too late to give up brewing.  At the end of the fest after I’ve personally tasted about 100 beers I’ll declare a winner.  A digital trophy is free.  If you want a physical copy, each plaque will be 49.95 plus tax and shipping.  I’ll take a picture with you.  Big smiles and handshakes all around.  I will spend all of the money on  “overhead” and you’ll use you award to try to convince people your beer is better than it is.

Beer Hipsters

The stereotypical beer snob is a strawman that doesn’t exist.  Sure, there are dicks everywhere, but does craft beer attract them?  No, craft beer has the same amount of snobs as any other hobby and I would argue probably less.  Corporate beer marketers and craft beer traitors (Landos) toss around the word hipster a lot, but what the fuck does that even mean?

What is a hipster?  I guess the simplest definition would be someone that goes out of their way to make it seem like they don’t care, but the amount of effort they put into making it seem like they don’t care shows that they do care, therefore you can slap them with the pejorative “hipster”.  Obviously this isn’t a club someone is going to claim to be a part of.  It’s an insult and an unorigonal one at that.

Corporate beer marketers are going to tell you that you’re a hipster for avoiding corporate beer.  Why?  That makes no fucking sense.  Is it counter culture to support small businesses?  When I walk into a local craft brewery I see people of all different backgrounds drinking and having a good time.  I don’t see “hipsters” there.  Maybe they don’t go out in public.  Inbev would have you believe that they make the greatest beer on earth and the rest is leftover bathwater.  That must be why you’re a hipster for avoiding them.  According to them you’re purposefully avoiding good beer in favor of swill that will probably make you go blind after you get dysentery.  

We’re looking for an even playing field so let's equate it to baseball.  The Yankees make the most money in the baseball.  Good for them.  What if they decided to buy the Royals?  That's where it starts.  They share players during each others off days.  They consolidate the teams once one of them is out of the playoffs.  Eventually they buy more teams with the goal of owning every team in the playoffs.  That's how you win without even competing.
 

You may say that that is a ridiculous analogy, but I don’t see it that way.  I see that as exactly what is happening.  Just go to a Dodger game and try to find a beer that isn’t owned by InBev.  You might say “The craft beer selection is a lot better now that InBev owns them” and that might be true, but what's our endgame here?  Are all of our great craft breweries in America a farm system for InBev?  I say, fuck that shit.  I’d rather see every brewery in LA competing for taps at Dodger stadium and consumers voting with their wallet who gets to stay and who has to go.  Instead we get InBev deciding what we want.  It might be better than it was, but it could’ve been so much better.  Don't pay them.  It’s the only way this bullshit will stop.

Another commonly tossed out point is the fact that businesses in other industries buy thier competetion.   What the fuck do you want from me?  Should I start up the Worst Dishwasher Blog and write about Whirlpool?  It sucks.  I wish I could do something about it.  Most of the appliances in my house were here when I moved in.  I’m actually interested and follow the craft beer industry and that's why I’m upset about it.  If someone steals from you are you expected to devote the rest of your life as a victim's advocate?  I’m talking about some bullshit and if you’re going to give me a weak ass defense like that, you can just fuck right off.  I would actually argue that you don’t care about the craft beer industry at all.  You just want to drink a beer that is yummy and you don’t give a shit who makes it.  You can go ahead and contribute to the same snake eating it’s own tail approach that brought us as industry being dominated by light lager.

God I hate this meme so much.  

One thing I’m not going to do is let InBev tell me what’s cool.  According to their twisted logic drinking InBev beer is cool and not drinking it is being a hipster.  Are you fucking kidding me?  That's the weirdest, most pathetic marketing campaign I’ve ever heard.  A hipster is someone that has been exposed to craft beer, knows about it, enjoys it, but continues to drink macro beer.  These fucking hipsters are what's wrong with beer.  They say “just drink what you like”, but they are clearly just drinking what they think makes them look cool.  They are the snobs you run into at a party that just want to talk your ear off about how hard it is to brew consistently at that level.  Dude, we get it, you love macro beer.  Please just let us enjoy our single growler of impossibly small-batch beer in peace.  So next time you see a real beer hipster, tell them you hope they drown in a pool of Bud Light.

Why I Hate Modern Times

The hype was real when Modern Times beer first came out.  Four packs were flying off the shelves, and I was as excited about it as everyone else.  Cool branding, I love pint cans, and they were saying all the right things.  After a couple weeks I was at a bar and was able to try Fortunate Islands and Lomaland.  I didn’t think too much of them.  Didn’t really like Lomaland at all.  I had two pints of each, people around me were raving about them, but I just didn’t get it.  I figured maybe I was having an off day so I bought all four of the four packs.  Drank them all and I just didn’t like any of them.  Fortunate Islands was fine, but the rest weren’t good.  I would hear people constantly talk them up and assuming I did something wrong I picked up another four pack and finally I gave up on them altogether.

Time went by, I kept seeing more and more posts about them, so I broke down and I tried a couple of limited releases.  One of them was ok and one of them was fucking awful.  As I was pouring that buttery mess down the drain I thought to myself “this is bullshit.  No more.”  I refused to sit in silence anymore.  From then on I started talking about not liking Modern Times whenever I could.  It didn’t go well, but I needed to be an advocate for the other people that due to family or cultural pressures couldn't come out as not liking MT.  I was very outspoken on social media which resulted in lots of blocks and unfollows.  You can not like Stone, Sierra Nevada, or even Firestone Walker, but any negative opinions about Modern Times aren’t aloud.  Most of the time people were shocked that anyone could feel that way.  It felt like I was trying to argue with the Westboro Baptist Church about religion.  No one had ever spoken about our lord and savior Modern Times that way.  Flawed beer is only something that mere mortals could make.

This only strengthened my dislike for them.  After a while my dislike turned to hate and that hate was directed towards the fans of MT.  This was war.  I would say their beer was disgusting just to get a rise out of people, and it worked.  Oh man did it work.  There is literally nothing that made me laugh harder than trolling people about Modern Times.  When someone posted a picture on Instagram a simple “did you run out of good beer” would start an argument almost every time.

After a couple years of fighting the good fight something strange happened.  Finally, people started to say “they’ve gotten a lot better” rather then “you’re crazy, Jesus himself couldn’t brew better.”  People started to come around and agree that a brewery wasn’t going to outdo every brewery in the state in their first year.  I patiently waited for an apology, but that never happened.  So I decided to try them again.  I bought one of their special release double IPAs.  I tried it and it was ok, nothing special.  I went back to one of their fans and said “you fooled me again.  I wanted to give them another chance and I picked up _____” and the response I got was “Oh yeah, that was bad, why would you pick that one?”  Huh?  Why would I pick that one?  I picked it because there was a pallet of it at the store and it was super fresh.  I picked it because I thought it was something they liked at their tasting room and chose to release it on a huge scale.

Ok, so again, I think I must be the crazy one.  Everybody talks about how great their coffee is and how good Black House is now because they roast their own coffee.  That made sense to me, so being the dumbass I am I picked up yet another four pack of Black House.  Black House was just as ok as I remembered.  I just got MTed again.  

I’ll give Modern Times some credit.  Their worst beer is better than my best home brew (with the exception of a couple butter bombs I had).  These guys are legit pros and I’m just a guy trying to get the best beer for my money.  I’m not saying I can brew better than anybody at MT.  Along those same lines, if I were to challenge the worst NBA player to a game of one on one he’s going to make me look disabled.  

Modern Times isn’t terrible.  If I wasn’t getting shit from their fanboys I wouldn’t even feel the need to talk about them.  I’m assuming they have a lot of great stuff, but my problem is with the misses.  We have a low batting average here and I don’t want to have to trust beer reviews.  I trust breweries to release their best stuff.  You waste my money too many times and you’re out.  There is too much great beer out there and the line of acceptability is moving from good to great.  

At this point you’re probably thinking to yourself “I really don’t care if you hate Modern Times or not” and to that I say, thank you.  If that was what I heard the first time I said anything about MT we wouldn’t be here right now.  I hear people trash Stone all the time and nobody gives a shit.  In fact, if you were to stick up for them like an MT fanboy people would laugh at you.  Modern Times is just another brewery.  Just another brewery that brews absolutely shitty beer.  Fuck anyone that likes them.  Including friends, family, and me because I'm sure I'll eventually find a beer brewed by them I like.  

Corporate Beer Sucks

In 2011 when AB Inbev bought Goose Island life forever changed for me.  Before that time I would drink Bud or Coors, if that was all that was available.  I compared it to stopping at McDonald's.  Sometimes you just want something that’ll get the job done.  I was very forgiving of macro breweries.  They stayed on their side and they pretty much left craft beer alone, with the exception of Blue Moon and Shock top, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who made them.

Then the media started poking the tiger.  Article after article about InBev’s market share shrinking.  Documentaries exposing their business practices at grocery stores.  We got cocky, so they played a card that they always had and were just waiting to use.   As Don Corleone famously said “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”, but instead of a horse’s head, it was just a lot of money.

Once Goose Island was purchased, as a craft beer drinker you had to pick sides.  This went for them and all the other companies that defected shortly after.  Either you were with them, or you were against them.  It wasn’t as simple as that though.  There were plenty of half assed ways that people were with them without actually saying they were with them.  A lot of people made excuses for them.  They said “the quality is still there, the same brewers are there and nothing has changed”.  I say, who gives a fuck.  These people are pulling what we call the Lando Calrissian.  You sold us out to Vader and now you’re going to tell us you had no choice?  You always have a choice.  Vote with your dollar.  Are you telling me you can’t avoid AB InBev products?  Next you’re going to tell me that you can’t stop yourself from eating lead paint chips.  Don’t be such a coward.  Stand for something in your pathetic excuse for a life.  

I have to give some credit to the Landos though.  At least they’re honest.  They are scummy dirt bags, but honest ones.  You know who’s even worse?  The people that just claim to they hate AB InBev.  They won’t order a shitty Goose Island wheat beer (so brave), but when Bourbon County Brand Stout comes out they cream themselves like a 12 year old boy watching scrambled porn.  Fuck you.  I hope you waited in line for hours and scored some infected beer.  We call these people “fucking liars”.  

Next we have the shameless corporate shills.  You’ll recognize them from the way they constantly repeat the same InBev talking points.  They call you a hipster and complain that “you’re telling them what to drink”.  You can try to debate them, but their eyes just glaze over and you can see them struggle to remember their script.  If you want to change the subject, ask them what they like most about Trump and walk away after they start ranting about immigrants.  

I could go on and on about the various ways people tell themselves it’s ok to support AB InBev, but I’m angry enough as it is.  Quality seems to be the subject that comes up the most.  You know what has great quality?  A blood diamond.  Just buy it.  Who cares about the slave children that mined for it.  If you loved a local dairy farm and kraft came along and bought it would you be ok with that?.  Would you trust this soulless corporation to keep everything the way it was?

What if Alpo bought your local butcher shop?  “Hey man, it’s ok.  They make really good quality dog food.  You don’t know how hard it is to make dog food man.  Bro, it’s nearly impossible to make dog food on that scale and keep up the quality.  You have got to give those guys props.”  

I don’t blame these owners for selling to big beer though.  I have a family I’m trying to support and I have two dogs that I love.  If someone came along and said they would give me a billion dollars to throw one of my dogs into a wood chipper I’d have to think about.  I wouldn’t do it, but I would definitely think about it.  Now, I’m not saying brewery owners that sell out are heartless, but I am saying that it wouldn’t take a billion dollars to get their dog in that wood chipper.  I would argue that some of them are driving around looking for people with wood chippers.

Lastly, I may be a douchebag, but I’m not a heartless one.  There is one group of people I do feel sorry for.  The people that work for craft breweries that are purchased by InBev.  These men and women went to work for someone they felt had principles.  For every single one of them it was more than just punching a clock.  They went into this industry because they had a passion for beer and they wanted to have a job they loved.  You might say that they should just leave, but who can just leave their job on a whim?

That is a big part of why I'm angry, but I’ll still be voting with my dollar.  Fuck corporate beer.  Fuck all the people that act like they love craft beer and stab the industry in the back the first chance they get.  Last, but not least, fuck InBev for the barbaric practice of grinding innocent dogs into lifeless bloody ground meat, who does that?