Alpine Expo Email

I received an email from Alpine Brewing this evening.  Alpine announced that Exponential Hoppiness, its triple IPA, will be released on Tuesday.  Here is the language from the email:

First, for the news most of you appear to be clamoring for, a release announcement. If the bottling goes well on Monday, then on Tuesday, July 26th, when we open, we’ll have another fresh batch of Exponential Hoppiness. But wait, there are conditions. We will be applying the 2 – 4 – 6 rule for this release:

·         No more than 2 new growlers of Expo (we’re short on growlers and all the suppliers are out right now),

·          No more than 4 growler fills of Expo per person per day,

·          No more than 6 bottles of Expo per person per day.

We won’t argue about the restrictions. If you want to break the rules you will be denied service and be told to leave.

There is some rational to the restrictions. Our beer is meant for our local customers first. We don’t care to see people sending growlers, meant for local use, being shipped off to far away destinations where the growler becomes useless, the environment needs consideration. The economy behind growlers makes them sensible only when they are refilled, not sent to the recycler or landfill. And, our beer is best fresh, hording bottles only lessens the quality of the old beer stored in your garage, warm, yuk.

Later in the email, Alpine braced beer drinkers for a price hike, as it raises capital to expand its facilities.  Alpine's beer prices are already low compared to other craft brewers, so a little short-term pain for a long-term benefit seems to make sense to me.