What does a bar owe you?

Nope

 

If the beer is in good form and sold in good faith then there is no obligation to replace it simply because you don't like it.
If I'm in any doubt I ask for a sample (unless I'm given one without having to ask!) so the situation is unlikely to arise.
My wife once ordered a fruit juice and chose melon because she hadn't had this before.When the landlord asked her what it was like she replied "I wish I'd chosen differently" and immediately it was replaced.We argued that there was nothing wrong with the product but the reply was "When somebody comes to my pub they enjoy their stay"

 

Hell no...be a lot of bars going under.

 

When I was new to craft beer, I asked what kind of beer Rogue Dead Guy was. The waitress said, "It's an IPA" so I ordered it. Even with my limited information, I didn't think it tasted like an IPA was supposed to.

However comma, knowing now what I do, I wouldn't
A) trust a server to know anything about a beer I was ordering;
B) order a beer without knowing what style it was;
C) expect to be comped for ordering a beer I didn't like.

 

It's common practice at to replace or comp a poorly received dish at a proper restaurant but I've never heard of the same being said for beer at a bar.

I'm curious though, for how many would this also extend to cocktails? I've sent back a couple cocktails in my day and didn't think twice but I've never considered doing the same for the beer. I suppose sampling and one being prepared and one being simply the serving of an already made product marks the distinction.

 

no, i hate people that do this.

 

Maybe bars/brew pubs can offer a small sample (1 oz?) of something a patron is unsure of. Then go from there.

 

I worked at McDonald's for a while and more than once we had people try to get a full refund on an entire order which they had completely eaten. Some people will ask for things knowing that the answer should most definitely be no, but also that if they get loud enough they are likely to get something out of it. Once we even had a drunk find a receipt in the parking lot and come up with some reason he thought we should give him everything that was on the receipt (I think it was "It was all so bad he had to throw it all away, give me more")

As for the topic of the post, if you just don't like it it's on you. That being said, if a server asks "How's everything" and they almost always do, you should feel free to tell them you don't like something. I think most places really do try to make their customers happy and will replace it. Are you owed that? No. Is it smart business? Yes.

 

I think they owe me about $3.50

 

You would probably get your money back if you asked, but then you would become the douchbag that the bartender hates and talks about after you leave. It's up to you.

 

If i still worked in the industry and someone demanded a diffeerent beer (assuming that i knew the beer tasted as it was supposed to) would simply ask them if they bought beer from a liquor store/grocery store that they didn't like beer would they take it back and demand a refund?

 

Ah no. If its on tap ask for a taste, order in a bottle it's yours.

 

Probably didn't work out quite as well for the bar owner though, most likely.

 

Fuck no.

I can't imagine the nerve it would take to send back a fresh beer. You should be banned from the bar at that point.

 

Just to play devil's advocate - say you order a meal in a restaurant. What you get is salty beyond what you find to be palatable. Do you send the meal back and expect it to be taken off the bill, or do you order another meal and offer to pay for the first one?

 

The worst, especially of it is a brewpub, is if the server presumes that the customer knows nothing about beer and then tries to insinuate an unsophisticated palate. I can remember one time that I was poured a beer at the Laguna Beach BrewCo and while I was already used to them having crappy beers, I decided to order a barleywine that they had on the board at some outrageous price. What they came back to me with looked like a home brew that somebody first dumped into the toilet and then changed their mind and scooped back out. The beer flat, it was literally separating in my glass somehow and had active yeasties doing that up and down scuba diver thing. I already knew that it probably wasn't going to kill me, so out of curiosity, I took a sip. I don't recall exactly what I tasted, except that it pretty much matched what I was seeing. I asked to switch out that beer and I didn't even care if it was for one of their regularly priced beers and the bartender refused to do it and insisted that what I was seeing was what I should have expected from the style. I couldn't believe it, but I was with a crew and everybody drinking wine was having a good time, so I just switched to that instead of making a bigger issue out of it. But as you might expect, even a location that close to the beach, with beer that bad and service that bad, eventually they did go out of business.

 

No way would I expect this. I've been in the position of gambling on a beer and really hated what I got. I blame no one but myself for that, especially since I stupidly didn't ask for a sample. Had it been recommended by the bartended that's more of a gray area where I jope a decent server would offee a replacement.

 

I frequent a bar that on the beer menu encourages you to try new beers but also warns that they will not provide a free replacement if you choose poorly.

 

The restaurant analogy isn't quite correct because the restaurant is responsible for what you're eating. Maybe a closer analogy would be if you got a beer you know should taste one way, but it doesn't taste that way because of dirty glassware or draft lines or whatever, do you send it back?

I'll go a step further with this question: should you expect better beer bars to know good beer from bad? If you go to a bar that claims it is an expert on craft beer, and has no crap on tap, and knowledgeable bartenders, etc etc, and you get a horribly brewed beer, how much of that is on you and how much on them? Say the beer is an IPA you haven't tried and it's a Werther's Original, just an absolute diacytel bomb, and the bar is clean in terms of draft maintenance.

There are definitely different circumstances and shades of nuance that can be applied to this topic. I definitely think that in an average bar you're stuck with what you get, and hopefully what you got was a taster. But if it's a bar you know, a bar that markets itself on its knowledge of beer, and either their draft system is a mess or they put a really shitty beer on? There's more room for... negotiation... in cases like that.