There are different animal analogies one can use when you see the general admission crowd massing at the gates as the clock counts down to noon of the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival. Pack of hounds being released or Rodeo bulls ready to buck.
To be fair, if I had been waiting in line since 10am, I might have some pent up energy too. But it is hard to see the wisdom of crowds in action when with so many great beers that a Mongol horde will descend upon Three Floyds tent for Dark Lord when the temperature is pushing triple digits. Eventually a line diaspora commences but as the day wears on it becomes clear who the pretty, young breweries are.
The golden nugget that I learned was that a new brewery should put “project” in the name. By far the biggest lines were for the Kiwi based Garage Project and Midwestern Side Project. But getting back in line, I would love to conduct a series of sociological experiments on craft beer drinkers. Nothing invasive, don’t worry. Just a which keg kicks first type of deal.
In the first test, I would set-up three booths. In the middle would be the hip brewery du jour. on either side would be older, venerated breweries like Sierra Nevada pouring beers that are more rare and/or more highly rated. The ratings would be brightly posted on the booths to see if that made people change lines. This would tell me if the ratings were the driver for people to form the desire to must-have the beer.
Test two, the same cool brewery pouring their least rare beers (their blondes and Kolsches) while on either side local breweries pouring their most well regarded beers. Would the rarity force people out of line or would it cause them to get angry. This would let me know if the people were brewery fans or just particular beer fans.
Test three would involve planting a long, slow moving line next to one that moved faster and where people were loudly exclaiming about how great the beer in their line was. Again, wanting to see what it would take to break the connection.
The final test would be to place the desired brewery booth way out of the way and maybe even have it in the wrong place on maps. Would distance force these lines down? How far would people walk when other beers were on the way?
Granted, this would be hard to do. Especially in the age of Yelp when people love to complain but maybe interviewing people while they wait in line with a quick three questions would yield some insight.