Coming second week of February -- we are not taking any more for our waiting list
We were originally told that Bell's has an official release date of February 8th this year for package. But Larry Bell posted on Bell's website that that is not correct. See his post below. I found out from our distributor that it looks like we are not scheduled until Mid-February now :(
Changes in 2012 Hopslam Release
Larry Bell - President
12.30.2011
To our Hopslam customers:
Recently, Bell’s issued a press release announcing “release dates”
for our Hopslam Ale. Although posted in good faith, the Hopslam
press release had some erroneous information. Because of the
potential impact of our expansion-related construction & the holiday
season on our brewing schedule, we had initially created a relatively
conservative release program that focused on a set of
specific roll-out dates. Fortunately, we haven’t experienced many of
the timing conflicts that we had anticipated in the brewing
schedule, and we’re reasonably close to matching the release calendar
of prior years. Unfortunately, the newly updated & finalized
roll-out timing wasn’t passed on to everyone during all the activity
here at the brewery, and I only realized the error after we
published the release dates from the previous plan.
There will be no hard and fast dates for the release of Hopslam in
2012, but rather, it will be released on a market by market
basis as has been our policy in the past. Because this brand has
gotten so large for us, and given the production time to make it,
this year the total time of release will stretch over a two month
period, meaning that some markets will have product well ahead of
other markets. And, in fact, some retailers in a given market may
receive product before other retailers. We are well aware of
the “fairness” issues involved in this process of distribution.
However, I believe that this will be our best option.
If we were to attempt to have Hopslam released on the same day for
all of our customers, then we would have to require our
wholesaler partners to inventory the beer, some for up to five weeks,
before they could ship it to the retail market. I found this
option unacceptable as I believe that Hopslam should be consumed as
fresh as possible. While this option would be fairer to our
wholesalers and retailers, it would mean sacrificing quality in the
name of politics. And in the end, Bell’s tries to deliver
quality.
All of our wholesalers will receive Hopslam this year. When they get
it depends upon the size of their order, our availability and
the individual trucking schedules for each wholesaler. Shipping is
NOT based on favorability. We will do the best we can to
satisfy everyone, all we ask is patience on your part while we brew,
package and ship this wonderful ale, while in the meantime try
to keep up with our other production. Currently we only have so much
fermenter space for dry-hopped ales and we need to keep up
our Two Hearted brewing. We are brewing over 5000 barrels of Hopslam
this year and it takes us awhile to get all that brewing and
dry-hopping done.
I apologize for the false information given out earlier. The
breakdown in communication lies with me and I am solely responsible
for the error. Hopslam will start shipping next week to some of our
smaller wholesalers, and shipping will continue through January
and February. Thank you for your consideration and understanding of
this issue.
Larry J. Bell
President
Bell’s Brewery, Inc.
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