Beer prices, outside of macro-made, have gone up on the whole over the past few years mainly due to cost of materials rising. A couple bad hop harvests and natural disasters shrunk availability of hops while the number of breweries exploded. Most breweries have done a pretty remarkable job of holding prices or keeping increases as modest as possible, but the unfortunate truth is that stuff costs money.

I understand the complaints about HopSlam. I found out about it arriving during the weekend and decided to take a “tear the band-aid off” approach–just getting it done and over with. So, I took the delivery asap, which turned out to be Monday morning. I only sent the email b/c, along with our Twitter and Facebook pages, I didn’t want anyone to be able to say they didn’t get notice of it arriving. I could have just sat there, without saying a word, and sold it all withing a couple hours.
The case limit was something I went back and forth about. In the end I went for it because last year we only saw HopSlam in smaller deliveries; I had no choice but to limit it. I figured in light of the 25 cases coming in, and knowing it was going to fly regardless, I’d at least make the folks I could make happy VERY happy.

I’m not sure I’d do it differently, but I still wonder about the case sales. I just get so sick of telling customers “no”, I figured why not just say yes this time? Also, unless I were to get a 100-case drop or more one year, most folks are getting “aced out”. The demand is that strong these days. Sorry I couldn’t do more to help you, but I’m glad you found some and appreciate the tone of your post. Thanks!