There is never a perfect way to say that you’ve missed a target in our industry. What I can say however, is that our world is rife with imperfect things. Things that don’t work when you need them to or do their job when expected.
What I can also tell you, though, is that when it comes to our beers – Nebraska Brewing Company beers – there is no compromise. We’ve demonstrated this again and again over the years and if we’re going to do anything, we’re going to err on the side of quality and as close to our definition of perfection as we can possibly be.
In that vein, many of you have heard the noise we’ve been making with our new bourbon barrel aged Russian Imperial Stout, MOAB. This is THE beer that has created levels of excitement inside the brewery that we haven’t seen in some time. This beer has achieved the levels of quality and flavor profiles that represent all that is Nebraska Brewing Company.
So why am I now making a statement? Because we have an unfortunate development related to the bottled version of this beer. We set the release date based on our normal barrel aging and bottle conditioning process, yet the bottle conditioning is not where it should be at this stage to provide our fans with the finished beer that we’d hoped to have available on our targeted release date.
The upside is that the kegged variant is exactly where we’d hoped it would be. Flavor profiles and carb levels that are absolutely in line with our highest expectations for you, our loyal fans and consumers. The downside is that the bottles will get there, but by our calculations are still roughly 5 weeks away.
We know many of you had made plans to travel for this release date and we do indeed intend to launch the draught only version with the same level of fanfare during Omaha Beer Week here in our taproom in La Vista. We will conduct an incredible suite of food pairings with not only MOAB but with all the Betty variants including Black Betty, Sexy, Betty and Little Betty.
For those of you who still wish to travel or come in on this release date, we will be handing out tickets / numbers for the bottle release as if this was the actual bottle release date. You’ll have an early opportunity to get “in line” to secure bottles for the currently unscheduled release date. This will be the only day in line tickets will be distributed until the actual release date. Limits still apply and there will be no charge for these tickets until such date as we release bottles of MOAB. For those who obtain ticket numbers for later purchase, we currently intend to hold bottles for 30 days beyond our release date to allow for a trip to the brewery to pick them up.
This is craft beer. I wish there were better options but we simply cannot release beers before the moment where we feel they meet our standards. I hope you understand. And as I’m sure there are those that will still cast a critical eye upon the situation – yes, it truly sucks. Believe me, this is one of those times when the suckage nears maximum. Thank you for remaining fans of Nebraska Brewing Company and enjoy the beer in spite of the development. MOAB is a fantastic beer and it will be worth the wait.
Sincerely,
Paul & Kim
