Saturday was the annual release of Cigar City Brewing’s Hunahpu. The famous imperial stout is released in a huge event at the brewery in Tampa, Florida.
In theory, attendees would buy tickets, show up to the brewery, sip rare beers, buy their bottles and head home drunk and happy. Unfortunately, Saturday didn’t go anywhere near as planned.
Despite selling fewer tickets to this years event, friends of BSJ reported in some instances taking two hours just to get into the event itself. Bottles of Hunahpu ran out before people could get their allotment. The above video, posted by attendee Ricky Peterika, shows police officers pushing a crowd of people back so they can shut the brewery’s garage doors. This prompted the throng of Hunaphu lovers to chant “Cigar City Sucks.”
It tooks us over two hours to get into the gates and then at least another hour to buy our Hunahpu. I think the beer festival idea was a good idea, but execution was poor. They needed more gate people, more places to buy your Hunahpu, and should not have raised the case limit during the last hour of the festival as this resulted in some not getting their 3 bottles. They should also limit what people can bring in if they want to still have it at the brewery. No chairs or coolers would mean more space for people to stand.
Cigar City announced on Sunday that all the purchased tickets would be refunded. Today, Beer Street Journal is told that there will be no more Hunahpu Day, and that the beer will go into distribution for the 2015 release. Another batch of Hunahu is in the works by the Cigar City, presumably for those that purchased tickets and did not get a chance to buy their bottles.
