The Bar Towel

Bill Pierce wrote:It doesn't look good for the remaining locations. The subject is already being posted on the discussion forums for eBay professionals. Those people will pay someone to stand in line as long as necessary to get it. Expect to see scalpers' prices advertised for Westy12 within a day or two.

Now that's interesting. Can you link to one of these posts? I'd be really interested to see what they're saying about it.

Is this perhaps an end-run around Ebays restrictions on beer sales?

Yes. (This was discussed above).

StevenThrasher wrote:

icemachine wrote:Wow I was hoping I could grab one pack in RH and and one at Bayview Village for my FiL, guess that idea is scuppered

I was going to try the same two locations. And yes I doubt I will have any luck either. Maybe I'll try to get to one before 8AM and line up.

I'm thinking I'll take a 1/2 day off work tomorrow

icemachine wrote:

JerCraigs wrote:Can we at least all agree that everyone who tries to sell a bottle for more than $30 gets a punch in the junk and not money?

Apparently some A-Hole in San Diego is trying to sell an empty box for $230 on E-Bay. I can only hope it is a joke.

Is this perhaps an end-run around Ebays restrictions on beer sales?

Hadn't thought of that... I assumed it was a guy hoping to catch an idiot who will pay it but you might be right... hmmm...

Cass wrote:

brew-san wrote:I didn't keep up with special releases as much back then but was the first year with the Ola Dubh 40 year (few years ago) this bad?

This is clearly the craziest ever at the LCBO, I don't think I can recall lineups for beer before. The DFH was 'lets run around the city and find it' but it didn't have this kind of single-day insanity.

I really wonder who are all the people that are lining up. The audience of Bar Towel isn't *that* big and the media was fairly limited (Star print & TO Life, from what I can see). I guess there's just A LOT of people that buy into hype in Toronto.

I honestly think it was thestar article. A lot of people in line said they had heard about from there. I even had my dad asking me if I was going to buy it because he read about it in thestar.

Cass wrote:I really wonder who are all the people that are lining up. The audience of Bar Towel isn't *that* big and the media was fairly limited (Star print & TO Life, from what I can see). I guess there's just A LOT of people that buy into hype in Toronto.

I was at Queen's Quay this morning and I was wondering about that too. I got there when the lineup was two lengths of the building. The store manager warned me that I may be one of the last to get one. I think there was about five to six more after me. Everything was civil and went quickly. The store manager prepared everything really well handing a package to each person that walked in and all the registers were going.

I'm going to try to get my hands on another one for a friend of mine who can't get around to the various LCBOs too easily. If I can't get another one we'll split the one I got.

So let's blame Josh, not BarTowel

JerCraigs wrote:

icemachine wrote:

JerCraigs wrote:Can we at least all agree that everyone who tries to sell a bottle for more than $30 gets a punch in the junk and not money?

Apparently some A-Hole in San Diego is trying to sell an empty box for $230 on E-Bay. I can only hope it is a joke.

Is this perhaps an end-run around Ebays restrictions on beer sales?

Hadn't thought of that... I assumed it was a guy hoping to catch an idiot who will pay it but you might be right... hmmm...

There are a growing number of ebay auctions for various "empty", "empty*", or "empty?" bottles at the moment. Trying to sell an "empty" westy gift pack doesn't sound too far-fetched.

I guess this shitshow is the part that comes along with the LCBO's massive year-over-year increase in craft beer sales.

Cass wrote:

brew-san wrote:I didn't keep up with special releases as much back then but was the first year with the Ola Dubh 40 year (few years ago) this bad?

This is clearly the craziest ever at the LCBO, I don't think I can recall lineups for beer before. The DFH was 'lets run around the city and find it' but it didn't have this kind of single-day insanity.

I really wonder who are all the people that are lining up. The audience of Bar Towel isn't *that* big and the media was fairly limited (Star print & TO Life, from what I can see). I guess there's just A LOT of people that buy into hype in Toronto.

There was a metro article http://metronews.ca/food/459872/rare-we ... g-to-lcbo/ it seems. That would catch a lot of people's eyes.

They really should have just done what they did with the Utopias. The LCBO has a procedure for rare high demand items I don't understand why they didn't use it.

I'm convinced that the LCBO should have offered both Westmalle and Westy packs to those waiting in line. As soon as you come in the store you would have to make a choice between the two. If you just heard about the "W monk beer" then either way you go home happy. You got one! It's tasty! If you knew what you were looking for then you might have a better chance of getting what you wanted... :p

Cass wrote:So let's blame Josh, not BarTowel

I certainly don't blame Josh, but when I saw the article I thought "uh oh". The Metro article (basically an uncredited reprint of Josh's article - Torstar owns Metro) didn't "help" either.

Cass wrote:And yesterday topped the 10th for biggest day of the year on BT. Hope the site isn't laggy for anyone, we've got a strong server but clearly a lot of traffic. Good luck with the hunt folks.

So what's the Google analytics for today look like

This is bullshit.

I wouldent mind if everyone who was lining up for the beer wanted it for thier own enjoyment, but if people are just doing this to make a few bucks, I'm thougroughly disgusted!

Agreed (with Gedge's comment). And it's also interesting that the price has not been a deterrent at all either, or might even have added to the "cachet".