I posted this back in January, complaining that brewers should be paid for beer at festivals. I won't repeat the reasons, go read them.
Apparently, it's working. I got an e-mail from a local fest organizer recently, telling me that they were getting a poor brewer response for their fest, and asking me if I could help. Yeah, I said, I can help: pay for the beer. You should, it's the right thing to do. Then tell the brewers you're paying for beer; I'll bet you get some immediate responses when they find out you're showing them some respect.
I figured I'd never hear from them again, but lo and behold, I get an e-mail the next day: the guy took my e-mail to a committee meeting that night, read it to them, explained the problem, and they voted to raise the ticket price $5 and pay the brewers a "beer honorarium" that should cover their wholesale cost. All right!
Then I just found out Wednesday that another local fest is now paying for beer. And I got two e-mails from brewers thanking me for talking the first fest into paying for beer. As Hannibal Smith (George Peppard) used to say on The A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."
4 comments:
I find it amazing that you say brewers deserve to get paid in one breath, and in another you openly solicate for them, distillers, and distributors to send you "free" samples. Can you explain this? Should you not pay them for the samples they send you?
Really? "Amazing"? The brewers and distillers and importers don't. In fact, one of the most vehement protestors about paying for beer at festivals is very quick to send me samples of new beers.
They want to know what I think, they want me to review their products; sometimes before release to see if they need tweaking. Really. I'm not re-selling their products to make money for myself, although I have donated some samples to charity auctions, after checking with the producers for permission first.
As to whether I "solicate" "free" samples...brewers and distillers have been sending me samples for years. I'm just making it easier -- and therefore more fair -- for them to do so by telling them how.
It's really not the same thing at all, and I'm...amazed that you think it is.
I've been saying this for the past year or so on various websites esp beeradvocate and finally many PA festivals are paying for beer this year. Will Stoudt's finally pony up money after all these years??
Does Stoudt's really need to be singled out? There are a lot more fests not paying for beer than are. When we get to the "lone hold-out" stage, maybe we can point fingers. Right now it's much more productive (and much less vindictive) to laud those doing the right thing.
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