Imagine a time when Pliny the Younger—now one of the most coveted “triple” IPAs in the world—sat on tap at Russian River’s brewpub for two months. That was 12 years ago, before hardcore beer fans began whispering to each other on rating websites: “This is one of the best beers in the world.” These days, owners Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo arrive at their brewery in Santa Rosa, California, on regular Saturdays—no special beer tapping—to find a line halfway down the block. And during the two weeks each year when the brewery serves Pliny the Younger (for on- premise enjoyment only, no bottles or growlers), expect to see the truly dedicated drinkers camped out overnight in anticipation.

“You see the frustration in the customers’ faces when they can’t get into the pub and they’ve been to five stores and can’t find your beer,” Natalie says. “We get calls from the angry retailers because 25 people come in a day asking for a beer they don’t have. Believe me, we’re brewing at 100 percent capacity. We’ve wrung out every towel, figured out every efficiency.”

The discomfort in her voice is audible. That turns to something fiercer, though, when she talks about the individuals and liquor store owners who buy Russian River beers as consumers at the brewpub, then resell them at jacked-up prices.

“We’ll get a call from a fan who goes to the store and the retailer is charging $20 for a bottle of Pliny the Elder,” Cilurzo says. (Elder is the bottled, double IPA cousin of Younger.) “We check with our wholesalers to see if that’s one of their accounts; if not, we turn them in to the [Alcoholic Beverage Control]. If we find our beer in states where we don’t distribute, that’s very illegal, and it becomes a federal issue. Unfortunately, we know too much about this.”

Cilurzo and other brewery owners who craft these beers occasionally find themselves in this odd, secondary role of beer cop. That’s even more true when it comes to beer releases that only happen once a year, like Cigar City Brewing’s Hunahpu’s Day, Three Floyds’ Dark Lord Day and The Lost Abbey’s Veritas release. These events—and they are events—sell out well in advance, and have become unique spectacles. Hunahpu’s Day ended early (and abruptly) in 2014 after counterfeit tickets left thousands of attendees empty-handed, but stricter ticket policies and a steeper $200 price tag kept crowds manageable in 2015. At Dark Lord Day this year, only attendees who purchased a special Group Sales ticket had the chance to even buy Dark Lord imperial stout bottles; general admission ticket holders were just there to watch the day unfold and hope to get their hands on a bottle some other way. These events leave thirsty consumers who don’t have a golden ticket to search the secondary market. The day of a release, some brewers take to Facebook and eBay, monitoring the very consumers they sold beer to just a few hours before.