Beervent Calendars
Every year, our team puts together the most killer Advent Calendar designed for adults – the Beervent Calendar.
BE SURE TO PRE-ORDER YOURS HERE (starting on July 1)
- Don’t forget to check out the “Beervent Frequently Asked Questions” at the bottom of this page.
The Beervent Calendar features 25 different beers, one craft beer for each day starting on December 1 all the way through Christmas day. Each day, you get to pop a tab and be surprised with something new. The beers are all different styles (last year the box featured 22 different styles of beer) and are from breweries all around the world. In addition, this calendar generally features at least 10 completely unique beers that you won’t find anywhere else in the Cincinnati market. Those beers are either:
- Collaborations with local breweries that we brew specifically for the Beervent Calendar, or
- Special orders from out-of-state/city breweries that won’t hit shelves anywhere else in the city
Of everything we do around the shop, this is one of the things we are most proud of.
Because of that, we wanted to share a little extra insight about the amount of time and effort that goes into these beauties.
Planning
We start planning the Beervent Calendars in June each year.
“Why?” you may ask. Because it’s necessary for customers to get the best experience and value.
That planning involves the following:
- Making a list of all the styles/ sub-styles that we want to focus on. This list even includes us looking at different daily holidays or themes within the month to pair a style/ beer name/ adjunct with the day. Yes…. we are that detailed when making this (For example. We may have given a lump of “Coal” in the past on St. Nick Day).
- Talking to our distributor and brewery reps to see what beers will be on the production schedules.
- Meeting with local breweries to determine if a unique collaboration beer can be brewed.
Once beers are selected and collaborations are lined up, our team schedules dates for delivery & goes to the collaboration breweries to brew the special beers.
Along with these special beers, we work directly with the breweries to come up with:
- Beer names (we would argue that this is the hardest part of brewing a beer)
- Label art
- Recipe design
Pre-Packing
Before packing day (which used to be the Monday after Thanksgiving, but after some feedback we have decided to pack all of these before Thanksgiving so customers can pickup before the holiday), there is a lot of work that happens to get the beers ready to go into boxes.
- The first step is making boxes. All of our boxes are made locally and shipped to us flat, so our team assembles each box including the inserts and lids.
- Box making usually takes at least 40 “man-hours” that we spread over a couple weeks.
- Receiving and prepping beers comes next.
- As beers come in, they are generally packaged together in “PakTechs” (those little plastic toppers that connect a 6-pack together), or in cardboard boxes.
- All of those have to be removed once the beers are delivered to HG.
- Removing those is a tedious, mind-numbing process where we get lots of pod-cast and self-reflection time in our storage facility.
- This process counts for another 40 or more “man-hours”
Packing & Pickup Day(s)
Packing day is not a day for the weak of body or mind. It is a grueling, day-long marathon where we create somewhat of an assembly line of all these spectacular libations that we hope you will enjoy!
Although we’ve gotten pretty efficient in our process, packing day takes well over 100 “man-hours” to complete the process of loading every beer, getting the lid placed and stacking boxes to get ready for customer pickups.
Each box weighs approximately 30 pounds, so we all get our workout in for the week in addition to all of the great paper-cuts and dry hands from the never-ending stacks of cardboard.
We are so happy to do it all for you though, because we love getting to see everyone’s reactions and feedback.
Pickups!
Pickups this year will start the week before Thanksgiving. Our team is happy to help find your box and even load it into your car for you.
This is probably our second favorite part of the process. Watching everyone come in excited to get their boxes makes all the effort worth it.
What’s even better though?! Seeing everyone post their thoughts on social media each day with #HGBeerventCalendar so don’t forget to post your favorites!
Beervent Calendar Frequently Asked Questions
- My purchase confirmation says xx pickup date. Is that correct? Short answer. No. Our system, Square, automatically generates a pickup date / time based on when you place your order. ALL CALENDARS, regardless of order date, will be ready for pickup starting on the same date. What is that date? We don’t know just yet as things are all dependent on beers showing up on time. Our plan is to have them ready for pickup starting the week of Thanksgiving, but at the very latest, they will be ready by the end of November.
- When is the last day I can order? We wish we could tell you. Boxes will be available for sale until we sell out. That sell out date could be in July… it could be in October, we just don’t know. Because of the fact that we plan / order all of the special beers months in advance though, once we sell out, we are not able to make any extras.
- How fresh are the beers? As fresh as possible. We do our absolute best to work with breweries and distributors to make sure beers are packaged and delivered to us within a couple weeks of when we pack all the boxes for pickup.
- Are all the calendars different? No. Every calendar is the same. In the past, we have tried to accommodate custom boxes, but due to the scale it is just not possible for us to work with that. We do usually have every empty boxes for sale after all of the pre-sold boxes are done being packed, but that is not a guarantee. If we do have extra boxes, those can be purchased and filled with any beers from our shelves that you choose at our normal retail prices.
- Will this box fit in my fridge? Well… how big is your fridge? We do get asked a lot how to keep these things cold and what the best way to approach storage is. If you’ve got enough room in your fridge, then more power to you. If you’re like most of us, don’t worry, we make sure that every beer going into the box is “shelf stable”. That means the beers aren’t going to explode in the box if you leave them at room temperature. Our favorite method is to:
- Leave the Beervent Calendar under your tree
- Open your tab each morning to see what you get
- Toss that beauty in the fridge
- Once the clock hits 5 (or noon… or 10 am… we don’t judge), open the fridge and crack that bad boy open!