The Younger and the Restless

In late January, Russian River Brewing held their annual release of Pliny the Younger. The world famous Triple IPA had already debuted in bottles the year prior, after historically being draft-only, but the fireworks took place online this year. Thanks to California’s liberal intra-state beer shipping laws, orders would be overnighted straight to consumers' front door as part of a mixed 12-pack. Participation in this year’s celebration would never be more convenient for fans lucky enough to purchase an allocation, but there was a problem. COVID trends lead to demand reaching all-time highs, exceeding supply by at least 15X, while patience and empathy from a sub-section of customers fell to all-time lows.

The Value of Convenience

At the pandemic’s onset, Russian River was quick to join brewers flexing their business models into an e-commerce solution. After missing their first drop online, I scored some Pliny the Elder a few weeks later and directed the shipment to my father-in-law who lives outside Sacramento. Fearing that my family’s next visit could be over one year away, fresh Pliny at their doorstep was a fun way to say “we miss you”.

After arriving at Russian River’s website, I placed the case of Pliny into my digital shopping cart, then headed to the checkout. I pointed my computer’s mouse in the credit card field, saw my encrypted card number drop down and entered my 3-digit code. I went to change the shipping destination to my in-laws, but only had to type the letter “A” before the address appeared. The entire process took under 60 seconds, but the convenience didn’t stop there.

I immediately received a tracking number from California’s local freight carrier, Golden State Overnight (GSO). The next day an e-mail arrived stating that the box was “In Transit”, followed by another the following morning that it was “Out for Delivery”, then finally: “Delivered”. All in less than 48 hours. This convenience and service has brought me back and kept my father-in-law’s fridge well stocked with Pliny.

Photo by Doug Veliky

Younger Demographics

The integration of a sophisticated e-commerce platform helped finally tap into California’s unmet demand for Pliny the Elder, but it would be no match for the fury of their annual ‘Younger release on January 28th. Despite high demand, Russian River’s production planning had to be scaled to the number of physical boxes that their staff could manually pack, label, and ship in a two-week period. With both restaurants shuttered due to COVID and slim resources to pull from, the number landed on was 32,000 bottles of Pliny the Younger, bundled into 8,000 boxes, each containing four of this year’s release, plus eight other Russian River staples.

On the morning of the sale, the brewery’s IT Director waited on standby as 110,000 hyped up beer fans simultaneously flocked to the brewery’s webpage. The site successfully fought through the storm without crashing and all 8,000 available orders were processed in about five minutes. After navigating a year-long pandemic, which started 18 months after a massive $50M expansion, not to mention the tragic wildfires that have continued to devastate their region and its tourism, Russian River deserved a little luck that day. The brewery proudly shared news of the sellout on Facebook, but many were not in the mood for a celebration. So Facebook did what Facebook does:

We shouldn’t be surprised at the turnout for California’s most famous beer release. The state has over 1,000 breweries, legal in-state shipping, and the time investment at a computer to try one’s luck was minimal. Sports cards and memorabilia collecting have reached all-time highs during the pandemic as individuals seek out hobbies, nostalgia, and connectivity that’s conducive to being at home or online. Both industries share a majority of participants who are in it purely for the the love and hobby, with an underbelly of opportunists looking to make a quick buck. I know from experience that the people who lash out tend to be the profiteers who missed out on “easy money”, not loyal customers. So while an apology wasn’t owed, one was provided anyways, which lead to a thousand more comments.

My wife and I enjoying our first ever Pliny the Younger in February 2020, right before the world changed.

“You Should Have Done A Lottery”

To handle the bandwidth of 110,000 users simultaneously, breweries can’t rely on homegrown sites, small biz servers, or an IT Department of one. The artisan approach of craft beer needs the sophistication and raw power of tech giants. In Russian River’s case, they use publicly-traded Shopify, which handles over 1.3M e-commerce sites around the world, according to Builtwith. The automated communications that I praised with my own Pliny orders were made possible thanks to integrations between Shopify and GSO, using a 3rd Party application called ShippyPro which facilitates the two systems talking to each other. Imagine receiving an order, then having to manually create a shipping label. Thankfully, these integrations automate the data and process flow between systems and subsequent printing of the 8,000 labels.

As you’d expect, the angry social media mob was happy to offer their beer consulting services in the comments section. The concept of a lottery was brought up by many, serving as a more fair and equitable method to determine winners. On the surface, not a bad idea at all, but Shopify and other big tech solutions don’t arrive out-of-the-box with the features and demands to satisfy today’s beer enthusiasts.

Craft beer’s nuances are captured well by more niche platforms like OZNR, a recent acquisition by the parent company of Untappd. Russian River actually uses OZNR to facilitate their Cellar Society memberships, but the popular new service was likely not an ideal fit for a release at the size and reach of Pliny the Younger. Participating in a lottery hosted by OZNR requires downloading the app and having a credit card pre-loaded for immediate processing if selected. Between that constraint and the educational leap for such a wide audience, the additional 3rd party fees, and the need for integrations to automate Intrastate shipping, electing to use Shopify for a straight-forward sale made perfect sense to me.

Photo by Doug Veliky

Checking out

Not all beer releases have the clout of Pliny the Younger and ability bring millions of dollars in tourism to an area like Sonoma County by returning to in-person releases. All craft breweries however, should be hungry to get back to brand building basics through in-person interactions with customers. The pandemic’s recovery is happening sooner than many expected, so perhaps some degree of toothpaste actually will wind up back in the tube.

Interesting times are ahead as breweries continue adapting and improve their e-commerce system(s), while simultaneously reopening taprooms & restaurants and likely seeing a drop-off in online momentum. Operational challenges will arise in search of balance between their investments in new platforms, third-party delivery services (Grubhub, Doordash, etc.), curbside pick-up options that consumers have been trained to expect, and the on-site service and personal touches that we all want back. Can breweries afford to do all of these well? Can they afford not to?