I take it that several people have managed to get some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and that it's available for a pretty reasonable price. Is that still the case? Has anyone tried to order anything else from them like Celebration or Bigfoot? Any luck with other California brewers like Stone, Alesmith, or North Coast?
The low cost of shipping from California compared with everywhere else (going by what the LCBO's website says) would seem to weigh heavily in favour of that state's breweries in terms of overall cost to the consumer here. I suppose that shipping costs would be a lot more from states that don't already send large quantities of wine or spirits to the LCBO. Has anyone asked about other US breweries--maybe Three Floyds, Kalamazoo (Bell's), or Hair of the Dog? What about European beers? Are the costs exorbitant? Surely someone, either on a whim or in all seriousness, has submitted a request for some De Dolle, Drie Fonteinen, Fantome, J.W. Lees...
I'm guessing that the most common response to these kinds of requests is: "sorry, unavailable." I really don't think for a moment that there are a whole bunch of breweries out there eager to take tiny and sporadic orders from a few people in Ontario, but there doesn't seem to be any harm in trying to find out if there are more that just one or two who are willing to do so. And it would be nice to know who they are and what we can get from them. When you're starting to drown in a sea of cookie-cutter pale lagers from around the world, you need options, don't you?
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On a related note, does anyone have any experience with private ordering in Quebec? I've posted a few of the relevant links below for anyone who hasn't looked into it before. If nothing else, beer enthusiast groups like Bieropholie and L'Institut de la Biere seem to be better organized to facilitate such orders than we are. Prices are pretty good, and the selection of beers available for order appears to be getting better and better, and now includes Fantome, Stone, hard-to-find beers like Rochefort 6, and, yes, Cantillon (even the Kriek!).
Bieropholie Importations Privee (orclick here for a crude, but understandable, translation courtesy of Google)
L'Institut de la Biere Importations Privee (orclick here for the Google-translated version)
Office des Grand Crus (one of the Quebec agents)
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A bit long-winded, perhaps, but I thought that I'd throw it out for discussion.
