Tomorrow is 312 Day (not to be confused with 420 Day). In celebration, United is offering free beer to select 21+ passengers flying from Chicago O’Hare.
Indeed, this is a totally made-up holiday. But Chicago beermaker Goose Island Brewing Co. wants to make it as ubiquitous as other days associated with numbers…
Goose Island’s premier blend is 312 Urban Wheat Ale. United offers this beer onboard and will do something special on four flights from Chicago tomorrow. Passengers of legal drinking age on the flights below from ORD will receive complimentary Goose Island beer onboard:
- Denver (UA 407)
- Houston (UA 1083)
- Los Angeles (UA 369)
- San Francisco (UA 743)
Passengers on UA 1083 to Houston can even expect live onboard IFE. Goose Island is sending a brewer onboard the to give passengers a “full-fledged brewery experience” at 30,000 feet. The brewer will offer 312 beer, knowledge, and additional giveaways for age-appropriate customers.
CONCLUSION
I’m not a beer aficionado at all, but it seems Goose Island has copied the third wave coffee trend and is trying to create third wave beer. For the beer fans out there, is that a fair assessment? Will anyone be on one of the four special flights tomorrow? Perhaps if tomorrow goes well we will see free beer across the fleet next year on 312 Day. Or is that a pipedream that suggests the work of 420 Day?
I fly UA IAH to ORD so I guess that means no free beer for me. But I am connecting ORD to PVG so I’ll get my “free” beer in the Polaris Lounge.
Matthew, you should do more research into craft beer. The parallels with third-wave coffee are few, but it is equally interesting and has changed the landscape of beer, both locally and around the world. Goose Island was one of the first.
Also, I hope they don’t serve this to the pilots….especially those running the 737 MAX!
I hate to spoil it, but the situation is rather complex compared to coffee. Goose Island is owned by AB InBev. The big players have their “craft” breweries now. With the US still having arcane alcohol rules, many, if not most, states require that retailers acquire their stock from distributors. So each state has a limited number of distributors that have a de facto monopoly on sales.
The big brewers paid attention when small breweries started eating market share. They especially don’t like Sierra Nevada. So now they use their cozy relationship with distributors to make sure you can get your Lagunitas, Goose Island, etc. coast to coast.
But hey, if it’s good beer…