Disclaimer: Yes, this has nothing to do with music, the band that I stuck around for, Bubbly Creek Bluegrass, (a bluegrass band yes!) was fucking awesome. So there. Music shit out of the way.
Two Brothers Disclaimer: I love many of your beers. I have spent in upwards of a thousand dollars over the past few years choosing your product over others. I have visited your brewery for tours six times in two years. I almost died of a burst appendix on your property. The following article is written out of disappointment, not spite.
Please fix your festival.
I attended the Two Brothers Brewery Hop Juice Festival a few days ago. I brought my three hilarious children and my gorgeous wife. I did not stay long. And in the process of leaving, convinced nearly a dozen people not to attend who were on their way to join me and my family. It was brutal.
This is bound to be a long article, so if you want to jet now, ga'head. I'm using my SYFFAL credentials to write this instead of a private email because Lord knows they won't read emails from regular people. I know because I've asked a few beer questions in the past and got nothing back.
I will attempt to break this up with headings as well.
FEST LAYOUT: When you have limited space, you have limited space. Understanding that there wasn't much room to begin with, I see some of the decisions of where to put things as being made out of convenience for Two Brothers, not the attendees.
shitTERS: If you have a festival that serves beer as its main attraction, you are going to need bathrooms. Yes, it makes sense to put these out of the way, but by putting the bathrooms at the opposite end of your entrance you create a bottleneck and a nuisance for people who are either attempting to stand in line for something or sit and watch the entertainment.
Two Brothers chose to put all of their bathroom facilities in the farthest reaches of their festival, so rather than having a few in the back and a few towards the entrance to cut down on the mish-mash of people going to and coming back from the bathrooms right in the middle of the festival where people are standing (in line or watching the band), you had 95% of the people at the festival in transit the entire time.
Splitting these up makes for an easier end of any festival as you can hit the head on the way out, not have to force your way through the throngs of drunkards to get one last piss in before taking off.
FOOD/BEER/TICKETS: You have to sell tickets to avoid money issues, i understand. You want to split up food vendors to make it easy on the food vendors, I understand. You want to have a single tent for beer, I understand.
At each of these tents (five tents in total: 2 for tickets, 2 for food, 1 for beer *yes there was a 2nd tent, but we were told it was VIP only*), you have 1 to 3 workers.
- It would really help if these workers knew that there were other tents and what they did.
- It would really help if these workers knew what they were selling.
- And holy fucking shit, it would really help if these workers would communicate to the people in line that they might be out of something or something might not work.
I stood in the tickets line for 45 minutes. When I got to the register, the dude at the register wouldn't look at me. I held out my credit card and asked for 10 food tickets and 4 beer tickets (I'll get to that ridiculous bullshit in a minute). Dude wouldn't look at me.
"Do you not take credit cards?" I asked.
"It's down." The OTHER guy says.
"When will it be back?" I asked.
fucking SILENCE.
I appreciate honesty more than anything and this was frustrating because I was in line with over a hundred people, most with their credit cards out waiting to throw money at these people.
"No idea? Any idea? C'mon man I'm attempting to spend money here." I say.
So, because these jagbags couldn't let the rest of the line know, I took it upon myself to say to the people around me "Their credit card machine doesn't work". When the 30 of us left that line, people cheered thinking they were getting faster. No dice, we soon heard the grumbling over our shoulders as we headed to the other ticket tent when people discovered they couldn't spend money they waited in line to spend.
We get to the other ticket tent, wait about 25 minutes this time, get up there and yes they take credit cards. I asked it they could let the other booth know. Dude seriously looked at me and said "What other booth?".
I had been on the property for over an hour, had no food, had no beer and was again in a line trying to get back to my family who took up homebase at a metal 4-top table near the entrance.
SIGNAGE: THERE WAS NONE. If you wanted beer, you went to the beer tent. But what did they have? What could you get for how many tickets? There was a piece of paper, but it WAS ON THE TABLE! You had to wait in line to make your picks and then, if they had the beer you wanted, they had to ask someone else how big of a cup it went in. (This happened 6 times I shit you not.)
The food tents had signs for food options, but it meant nothing because the TICKET TENTS had no signage telling you how much food or beer tickets were. People weren't just confused, people were fucking pissed off confused. What do you get when you have a bunch of people who just want beer who can't just get a fucking beer? Tension.
LINES: The placement of the lines might've appeared intelligent when the parking lot was empty, but when they were at full capacity and spilling into other lines, the Fuck up was evident.
I was in line at the first ticket tent for 45 minutes before being shunned for having a credit card. I was in the second ticket line for 25 minutes. While in both lines I was in people's way. While in the beer line, which wrapped into the ticket line and a food line, I noticed that a good number of people just stood there not knowing where to go. Trying to find the end of the line is frustrating when you don't know WHICH fucking end of the line you finally find.
An easy fix for this is with ropes that zig zag. And if the line got too long, the festival staff should adjust the people working the tent to speed the muthafucker up. Or open up new tents. ANYTHING!
FOOD/BEER TENT GOODZ: On three occasions I literally said "are you joking?" to the people working the tents.
Number 1: I asked for a Dog Days and a Hop Juice. Lady said, the tappers aren't working for the Dog Days so I have to marry you one from a pitcher. I'M AT A BREWERY FOR A BEER FESTIVAL TO DRINK fucking BEER AND THEY DON'T HAVE A WAY TO GIVE ME BEER?
ARE YOU JOKING?
I had to give my wife a warm and heady Dog Days that was flat, but had 25% foam on it. The lady working the beer tent thought nothing of handing me a beer like this for 6 dollars a ticket.
Number 2: I waited in the food line for about 20 minutes for some fish tacos for me and my wife and a corn dog for the oldest child. "Sorry, fryers are down."
ARE YOU JOKING?
I was in that line for 20 minutes, nowhere during that entire time did anyone mention they couldn't serve the shit they were selling in the tent. Rather than communicating with the people who are paying fucking money to be there, these workers stepped back under their tents and shrugged their fucking shoulders.
Number 3: I already mentioned being ignored when trying to use my credit card to buy tickets after the first line I stood in for over 45 minutes, but my third WTF moment (probably 5th, but I'm not going to make this any longer) was probably the most uncomfortable I'd seen someone at Two Brothers Hop Juice Festival.
While waiting in the food line towards the entrance, after being told to stay inside the gate (even though the food line wrapped towards the entrance - NO ROPES), I saw a guy gleefully walking towards the entrance in full Two Brothers regalia.
Dude had a Two Brothers T-shirt, Two Brothers ball cap, had his VIP bullshit proudly dangling under a huge fucking Two Brothers smile - he was easily wearing 150 bucks worth of Two Brothers gear and credentials. He might've even had on Two Brothers nut huggers for all I know. He had a bounce in his step and he was ready.
Dude probably figured his VIP pass was enough to warrant entry, but he failed to see the ID Check tent to the north of the entrance and walked in without a wristband. I've never seen rent-a-cops pounce on a dude who was clearly not trying to break any rules like that.
"SIR! SIR! SIR YOU HAVE TO STOP!" They put their wrinkly elderly hands in his face.
"SIR YOU NEED A WRISTBAND TO DRINK!"
"SORRY! SORRY! SORRY!" The dude says with his hands in the air as he walks back out the venue.
ARE YOU JOKING? You don't need a wristband to enter. My kids aren't 21 and they're over there in the shade of the beer line. Yet rather than saying "Hey buddy, you'll need a wristband to drink alcohol" like a regular human, you have to flex your bullshit security balls to impress your other plastic badges?
The security guards will throw a hand in your face for not breaking any rules, but the fucking people working the tents won't tell you when they can't provide you with what you've been waiting in line for over a half hour for.
FOOD/BEER TICKETS: If this was Grant Park in Chicago and there was an issue with segregating food and alcohol purchases, I might understand this. But to further complicate an already complicated TINY LITTLE ATTEMPT AT A FESTIVAL, one fucking ticket would smooth a lot of bullshit out of the way without having to print out two types of tickets and answer questions over and over and over and over.
How it was: 2 bucks for a food ticket, 6 bucks for a beer ticket.
How it should have been: 2 bucks for a ticket. 1-3 tickets for food items and non-alcoholic bevvies. 3 tickets for a fucking beer.
Case closed.
You made something so fucking simple so fucking complicated.
Regular people can't do math of 6 bucks for 1 beer or 2 bucks for 1 food ticket. The people in my two ticket lines were doing the math for the workers before getting to the counter because NO ONE COULD ADD!
I don't fucking blame them either, shit gets hectic with a line out the fucking door. Stress doesn't make simple tasks easy, it makes them impossible.
Why not make it easy on your staff and your patrons and just have ONE ticket for ONE price and when selling shit (if you have it available and the fryers and kegs fucking work) you just charge a certain number of tickets?
I don't feel my complaints are me being an asshole either. Normally I'd accept whatever happens at a festival as being part of the experience. But none of these issues had to do with drunk people! None of these issues had to do with the patrons that usually bug other patrons!
All of these issues are an issue of simple fucking sloppiness and a complete lack of organization.
Other random quips I want to get in out of fear they won't be addressed at Two Brothers for next year:
*The awesome sinks at the bathroom had no fucking water to wash your hands. Yet, the soaps were fucking full. I was one of about 100 people who had a handfuckingfull of soap and no fucking water!
*The sound man fell asleep twice while I waited in line for tickets the first time. No shit. Like asleep.
*Tilting the stage at an angle might look cool on paper, but in reality, it looked sloppy. It wasn't equally providing music to both parts of the L that made up the parking lot, it was aiming sound at the corner of the building where no one could stand without getting run over by people heading to the shitter or back from the shitter.
*Parking was an absolute nightmare and it is irresponsible to not address it for next year. A few of my friends got their cars vandalized on a residential street, probably out of revenge by residents for having no way to get into their homes.
*If you're going to sell your beer, have the people selling it be able to sell it. When I asked the difference between the Domaine Dupage and the Dog Days and got "this one is brown and this one is yellow" I was fucking miffed. Not just miffed, fucking MIFFED. A brewery known for its beers has a yellow one and a brown one, good to fucking know.
What does all of this mean?
It means that one of my favorite local breweries is fucking sloppy.
Set up? Sloppy.
Execution? Sloppy.
Staff? Sloppy. (Nice walkie talkie broski, glad you're making fart noises instead of trying to maybe make these lines less confusing.)
Kegs as a stage? shit LOOKED SLOPPY!
As a home brewer and beer fan, I was hoping to see some sort of class at an establishment that looks great on their beer labels. But like the issues I have with their tap house pub, it all seems like they put effort in the shit you can see at home or the liquor store, but no fucking effort into making shit not look cheap when you're there in person. Their restaurant has equipment you can buy at Ikea and continues to look like they're renovating it even when it's all clean. If you don't look like you belong in business, you probably won't have the staff to act like you should be in business. You see most of their staff in T-shirts and jean shorts (JORTS BRAH!) standing around with their hands on their hips. Their bartenders MAKE that fucking place. If it weren't for delicious beer and cool bartenders, I wouldn't return to that place because it always seems like it's unfinished.
Every time I've gone to their brew pub to grab some beers I ask about Brewer's Coop, their mythical home-brew store, and every time I am told it's "being renovated". It might sound funny, but look at this text I just copied from their website: "SINCE 1993. We are currently re-inventing our store. We will be updating this site in the near future."
YES PEOPLE, THEY HAVE BEEN RENOVATING SINCE 1993.
Two Brothers recently bought the old Walter Payton's Roundhouse property in Aurora, IL where I grew up. At first I was all "hell yeah brah!" but after seeing how they treat a potentially huge festival that they've been doing for three fucking years so far, I sure as Fuck hope they have help in the organizational aspects of doing business in two fucking locations. If their main tap house looks like shit and is unorganized, what is their new place 15-20 miles away going to look like?
Since this was the third year of the festival, why did it feel like the fucking first?
Good things: Your Hop Juice is fucking delicious. Like seriously, in those small glasses, they tasted like fucking pornographic heaven in a sweaty clear glass. I will buy as much Hop Juice as I can when I get to a store that has it, it is that fucking delicious.
Hop Juice is the equivalent of riding in a convertible with a topless chick with natural tits, but on your tongue.
In closing:
Fix your shit up, you're embarassing the people who willingly spend money on your shit. I wanted a Two Brothers beer shirt, but opted on the side of "I don't want people to know I was somewhere where I was fucking miserable". That would be like buying a tshirt at a funeral. I didn't want to say goodbye to my friend/family member in the box (hop juice) but I sure as Fuck didn't want to remember the fucking sorrow (hop juice festival).
Also, if you've already read this far, you should make a point to visit the small bars that only sell craft beers in your immediate vicinity. I know of two awesome bars with awesome beer selections, including your shit, that have not had one of your reps in to see them. That's fucking bullshit. We are a community of beer brewers, drinkers and sellers, and you're fucking shit up by being snobs.