Howdy Folks,

Well its that time of the year again when the phone starts ringing off the hook, Facebook is alive with posts and private messages and customers are asking on a daily basis:
When will Pliny the Younger be here?

It will arrive. Honest.

The thing is, we don’t know for sure when. Honestly, we’re lucky when we know the truck with the beer on it has left California. And we are on top of it as soon as it arrives so we can get it to you as soon as possible. We just don’t know what date that will be yet. Yes, we can guess. Chris can make very educated guesses and most likely be right, but if he’s wrong people get all whiney and angry that we were wrong so it’s not worth making that guess.

However, once the truck is on it’s merry way and we can say for sure the dates, we will post them: on the website, on Twitter, on Facebook, on a poster hanging up on the doors and walls of the bar. So please don’t call. The 5 minutes of constantly repeating “No, we don’t have it yet, no we don’t know when we will” for EVERY phone call takes away from the time we should be serving the customers. We try to make this as easy as possible on everyone, so please look it up first instead of calling.

And yes, we will be using the same method of getting it to you fine folks that we’ve been using the last couple of years:
Doors will open at our usual time of 11am. We will be issuing Tickets that allow you to purchase a glass of Pliny the Younger as people arrive. You do not pay for the tickets then, you pay when you get your beer, so please open a tab or pay cash! There will be 2 colors of tickets, if you get the first color, relax, sit down, start a tab, get something to eat & a warm-up beer or two, you’re getting a Younger. The second color, well, Maybe. When it comes time to tap Younger, we’ll sell it to all of the folks with the first color, if you are seated & have a tab with a server, you can stay seated because the server will bring it to you. When we finish serving all the folks with the first color we will do a last call for that color ticket then line up the second color tickets in order (they have numbers written on the back 1-??) & start serving those folks. In order to get a Pliny the Younger you need to be here before we do last call for that color of tickets (usually around 25-30 minutes after we start pouring it) or you lose your chance & give it to the next person in line. I know it might sound a bit complex, but it’s really simple & has made our Pliny the Younger release days a lot easier, more civilized & less stressful for everyone involved. Also, we do not close out tabs during the tapping: you are more than welcome to open a tab when you come in, and put your PtY on it, but we do not begin closing credit cards until AFTER the keg has kicked. So about 45 minutes after the start. Please be prepared for that. (The last time we closed tabs during the tapping it took well over an hour for people to get their beer.)

Now last year we had someone come in two hours after the tapping and complain that they had the first color of ticket and therefore they should be given their PtY. Um, NO. Let’s repeat that section one more time: In order to get a Pliny the Younger you need to be here before we do last call for that color of ticket (usually around 25-30 minutes after we start pouring it) or you lose your chance & give it to the next person in line. When Beth and Rowdon start handing out the tickets, checking ID’s and such, they will give you a very good estimate of exactly what time you must be in the bar by to get your beer. If you come after that, well, you were warned.