Buying raffle tickets for a chance to buy a $30 bomber?

[Arrheinous]

I just got this email from Hoppin' Frog (a local brewery that's done pretty well for itself):

September marks the eighth year for Hoppin’ Frog Brewery, and to celebrate, we wanted to do something special to thank our fans for their continued support.

During our anniversary celebration being held in The Tasting Room this week, September 9th through the 13th, we will be selling raffle tickets for the opportunity to take home some of our most sought after rare beers!

That’s right! You could win the opportunity to purchase these super rare bottles, currently only available for consumption in our tasting room, to take home at special anniversary prices.

Barrel-Aged B.O.R.I.S. Royale Imperial Stout (May 2011) - $27

Barrel-Aged B.O.R.I.S. Royale Imperial Stout (August 2011) - $24

Barrel-Aged Naked Evil Belgian-Style Barley-Wine (2011) - $34

Barrel-Aged Naked Evil Belgian-Style Barley-Wine (2012) - $30

Barrel-Aged B.O.R.I.S. Bairille Aois Imperial Stout (2013) - $27

Barrel-Aged B.O.R.I.S. Van Wink Imperial Stout (2013) - $28

Tickets will be 1 for $1, 6 for $5, or 30 for $20. Get as many tickets as you want and use them towards the rare opportunity to purchase these awesome beers to take home with you!

Tickets will only be available in the Tasting Room during normal business hours.

...

Winners will be drawn at 8 pm on Saturday, September 13th. There will be six winners for each of the beers listed above. Winners do not need to be present to win.

Winners will have fourteen (14) days to make arrangements to purchase their beer (limit of 2 bottles per winning ticket.) Winning ticket must be presented at time of purchase.

The italics emphasis is mine.

I know nobody's forcing you to buy the raffle tickets but the whole affair just seems kind of weird...

 

[Airplanedoc]

So you are winning a chance to spend up to $60 more on beer and you don't even get a choice of which of the beers you want?

If people are drunk enough they will buy anything I guess.

 

[Hammy71]

Are they donating the proceeds or something?

 

[hunter_le five]

They can have all of my nopes.

I understand that some people get excited about special beer releases... but I don't. Not even slightly. I don't care how rare or hyped up it is. There are too many other (good) options out there for me to care at all. I will just drink something else.

I am not going to pay money so I can have a slight chance to pay even more money for a beer.

 

[mattd2]

...I am not going to pay money so I can have a slight chance to pay even more money for a beer.

But let me make sure I am clear on one thing, you can still buy the rare beers to consume in their taproom? So the only benefit you get if you do win is to take some of the beer home - and you probably would have to pay more for it?

 

[agrazela]

I predict that promotion is going to bite them in the ass when the "winners" sober up and realize they misread the rules and didn't actually win s**t.

I bet if they doubled or tripled the price of the raffle tickets and just gave out the stupid beer as prizes, they'd make a lot more money and a lot fewer angry folks.

 

[Zuljin]

They can have all of my nopes.

I understand that some people get excited about special beer releases... but I don't. Not even slightly. I don't care how rare or hyped up it is. There are too many other (good) options out there for me to care at all. I will just drink something else.

I am not going to pay money so I can have a slight chance to pay even more money for a beer.

I'll give them one nope, and it's an internet nope.

I like to find beers that I like and can't easily find, but this promotion makes them sound kind of full of themselves.

Now, if they donate the raffle ticket fees to charity, well, at least there's that, but, yeah, just sell tickets to win beer. I'd that's illegal, F da police! Or give away a plastic cup and just share some beer or something. Yeah. Sharing is caring.

 

[Barley_Bob]

My impression it that they're trying to sell these as a luxury item. So, my guess, as a complete outsider, is that they have a substantial fanbase with high rollers or with an international crowd. The only way I would want to do this is if I wanted to impress my colleagues in Japan with a a rare, elite American beer. Since I don't have colleagues in Japan (or anywhere outside the US, for that matter), I'll stick to my homebrew.

 

[Arrheinous]

My impression it that they're trying to sell these as a luxury item. So, my guess, as a complete outsider, is that they have a substantial fanbase with high rollers or with an international crowd. The only way I would want to do this is if I wanted to impress my colleagues in Japan with a a rare, elite American beer. Since I don't have colleagues in Japan (or anywhere outside the US, for that matter), I'll stick to my homebrew.

They were RateBeer’s 2010 24th Best Brewery in the World which was advertised more heavily until a year ago.

This is kind of the extreme end of the 'anything in a barrel is a license to print money' mentality.

I don't think the raffle is for any sort of charity. It just sounds like they think they're opening the floodgates to all the plebian masses out here from the bottom of their hearts. Or it may very well be an attempt at what Google tried to do with the Google Glass Pay-$1000-To-Wear-This-Thing program.

 

[TallDan]

The Hoppin' Frog BA beers are rather highly regarded. I have a couple in my cellar that I haven't tasted yet. If they only have six bottles of each available, I can't think of a better way than a lottery to determine who can buy them. The prices don't seem too crazy for what you're buying IMHO.

It's also possible that it's illegal to give away alcohol as a prize, so they're trying to get around that by giving away the prize of having the opportunity to buy.

 

[Hello]

I'm not paying money to maybe buy beer. That's silly.

 

[MagooBrew]

This is absurd. There are too many great beers out there for some brewery to think they are doing me a favor by allowing me to have a chance to buy their product. Hell I thought I was the customer.

 

[Grannyknot]

Maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but a stunt like this would likely turn me away from a brewery.
Community support keeps breweries afloat during the early stages. To repay the community with a swift kick in the nuts once they become sustainable seems wrong to me.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

This is the beer version of Ferrari when they sent out letters to their highest regarded customers ALLOWING them to buy the Enzo.

Either way, if I lived nearby and liked the brewery I'd buy into their gimmick for a couple tickets but that's about the extent of it. It'd be fun to have, save it for Christmas or after Thanksgiving and share it with a family member or friend.

 

[Arrheinous]

It's also possible that it's illegal to give away alcohol as a prize, so they're trying to get around that by giving away the prize of having the opportunity to buy.

We do have that out here. 25 cents for a wine sample at a grocery store, for example. But there's a million better ways to achieve the same thing.

Hoppin Frog gives out all their beer at the brewpub as 5/8/16 oz samples and it's kind of cool, also very sneaky when later realize you've gone through 10 five ounce samples. Why not give out a ticket for every X samples or pints purchased? Even a 50/50 raffle with ALS (just to join the bandwagon) would raise a lot more interest and less eyebrows.

 

[Homercidal]

I've seen some of the crazy surrounding limited beer releases. This sounds like a nice, quiet way to fairly sell beer without making people stand in lines for hours.

I mean, if you are paying that much for the beer anyway, what does a few bucks to play the beer lottery mean to you?

Probably nothing.