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bottled beer breweries marketing opinion

Haves and Have-nots

Stampede by Gopal Vijayaraghavan.
Stampede by Gopal Vijayaraghavan, from Flickr, under Creative Commons.

This morning, Huddersfield’s Magic Rock made Un-Human Cannonball, their 12% 11% ‘Triple IPA’, available for purchase. It sold out online within 20 minutes.

The last week has seen a constant buzz from beer geeks, trigger fingers twitching over mouse buttons, desperate to get their hands on this limited edition, once-a-year speciality. Though we’ve generally been very impressed by Magic Rock’s beer, we refused to play.

Beer, we’re beginning to think, ought to be a repeatable experience. That’s one reason we prefer St Bernardus Abt 12 to Westvleteren 12, and probably why our ‘cellar’ is full of ‘special’ beers we never seem to get round to drinking.

And, anyway, how good can this particular beer actually be?

For all our aloofness, though, when the starter’s gun sounded, we did, for a brief moment, feel the urge to join the race — to avoid being ‘left behind’ and place ourselves among the raptured:

The fact is, this kind of marketing event just works. If we ran a brewery, we’d be doing exactly the same.

If you’re in Manchester or London and want another shot at getting your hands on UHC, there are launch events taking place this evening at the Port Street Beer House and Craft Beer Company (Islington) respectively. Good luck!

8 replies on “Haves and Have-nots”

Last year’s really wasn’t my cup of tea. It just didnt have the ‘top notes’ of hop character you look for in a massive IPA. Sure it has loads of flavour but it tasted like a hoppy Barely wine and for me, buckled under it’s own weight.

That’s speaking as somebody who bloody loves magic Rock too. Probably my favourite UK brewery. Personally, i’ll stick with good ol’ regular cannonball. A truly stunning beer!

Also, I think it was 12% last time around but the 2014 version is 11% btw, not 12% as you say.

They wouldn’t want to be desperately Tweeting three months on from the launch event “Just a few bottles, left, guys! Get ’em while you can!”

“That’s one reason we prefer St Bernardus Abt 12 to Westvleteren 12”
There’s one overwhelmingly good reason to prefer the St Bernardus – it’s a better beer……

The line for this years Pliny started when two people left the pub when it shut and started the line for the next day. But I enjoy the seasonal releases as long as I don’t have to queue for them. Did you see the hunapaha thing? I’m surprised that doesn’t happen more often…

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