Note To Grumpy's Roseville

The name-calling might be excessive, but the OP has a point. There's a wide, deep, & disturbing pool of justification that runs through the "craft beer community" & this is a prime example.

A business is a business, whether it's Surly or Fulton or Grumpy's or Deena's Hummus or Target. When Target f-s up, I'd wager nobody on here would defend them. If Deena's sent out a bunch of Hummus that tasted like rotten leaves, nobody would excuse it for being a "small" operation (& if you haven't tried their Hummus, damn, you should).

Yet when local bars or breweries put sub-part product in front of us, there's often a chorus of excuses.

Bullshit. If bars & breweries want to be in the business of professionally brewing & selling product, I have a right to expect a good product from them. And if they can't be bothered to act professionally, they ought to be called out. Period.

 

The only way for the problem to get fixed is to bring it to a managers attention. Servers are really hit or miss with beer knowledge, so don't expect them to pass the problem along or to understand. At the very least, they should have replaced your Coffee Abrasive with something else for free regardless of whether you told the server or manager. If they don't know up front though, they aren't going to be able to help you and someone else will run into the same problem again.

 

Apologizing on the internet? Something else I may never see again.

And the only ties mothman has to Surly is if he bunny-ears his well-worn running shoes with Surly laces.

 

As a geezer, I've been patronizing specialty beer bars for too long, and have had my share of poor pours! Most were from kegs filled from a batch which was clearly infected, but plain-old OLD kegs (did I ever tell you about the 2 year-old Fuller's kegger* I threw?) are out there, and you needn't be Fox Mulder to believe that.

When it comes to specialty-Import and Craft Beer, the learning curve at on-sale can be very steep, but: Servers and bartenders at some places might give you a funny look when you ask for a different beer after noticing the one served to you** is off, but it's not in their job description to do that. Their job is to keep you satisfied, and the better beer bars and restaurants will do this. By no means should you feel bad for asking for a fresh pour. You're potentially saving them time and effort in tracking down a problem at the point of sale, so offering you a complimentary re-pour isn't just the right thing to do from a service perspective, it might even improve their service to people in your position in the future.

Finally --back to keeping this reply at least tangentially-Surly related-- I hit Gastro Non Grata last night and had some samples of Hell, Coffee Bender, and Furious. Now, if I could smell the coffee in Coffee Bender through the hops in a pour of Abrasive, that'd be enough for me to ask for a re-pour!

Sorry for the long-windedness (it's the cheap Aldi coffee, doncha know.)

* Much morning-after flatulence was had by all. Tasted great the night of, though!
** I mean if you notice a pour to be off after a sip or two, not after draining a glass.

 

I hope that my post isn't being confused with "justification," when I clearly qualified my post with "I am not making excuses for bars not cleaning lines..." And I don't think that the OP's post really falls under your example of "Deena's sent out a bunch of Hummus that tasted like rotten leaves..." My point is that a mistake obviously happened, but for the OP to allude that the place has a larger issue of not cleaning tap lines seemingly all based on one beer pour, is a ridiculous stretch. If you got one bad container of Deena's Hummus and you may return it and find nothing wrong with the next container of hummus, would you then go onto chickpeaadvocate.com and rant how Deena's better stop using spoiled ingredients in their hummus? Of course not. This whole incident for the OP should have started and ended with one sip and a simple request to the server: "Hey, you know how you said that you had switched Coffee Bender to Abrasive? Well now the Abrasive is pulling some of that coffee through and just isn't cutting it. Can you just get me beer X instead?" End of story, unless the server then said that he was stuck with it, then there would be a valid issue with Grumpy's. But by returning it and pointing out the issue, not only would his problem have been corrected for teh OP, but then the server would likely have told the bartender; who would then say "Damn, we have to remember to slap on something other than an IPA after a coffee beer."

 

Sorry, have to chime in.

First and foremost, Grumpy's Downtown and North East are institutions in the craft beer community and their communities in general and because Roseville is apart of this family, they get Grandfathered in. Pat Dwyer and his managers, bartenders and staff make all three of these bars favorites amongst everyone in this industry; be it you work for a distributor, brewery, another restaurant or if you are lucky enough to have one in your neighborhood. Their passion for craft beer is apparent in everything they do and to think otherwise is a gross oversight on your part.

That being said, there is a big difference between "Running" a line and "Cleaning" a line.

Cleaning a line entails taking apart the faucet, coupler, keg keepers, lines on both ends (cooler and bar side) and flushing all these parts and then putting it back together (there is probably a lot more to it, this is just the basics). Not to mention, if their cooler is downstairs or across the kitchen, they could be working with 50 ft of line for each tap. I have 24 lines and it takes a guy who's here before we're open (read that as no distractions, no one in their way and basically having the run of the place) almost 3 hours to clean all of our lines every 2 weeks.

Running a line - When a beer changes over, you have to run the line to empty the lines of the previous beer and pull the new beer into the line. When I run lines, I have about 50 feet to run. I can usually fill 2 or 3 pitchers before my line is ready.

Here's what happened on your fatefull visit; You obviously got the first pour, as you said you had ordered a bender, they came back and told you they were switching it, yada, yada, yada. When they poured your beer, they didn't run it enough for whatever reason, simple mistake. I bet if you would have said to your server; "Hey! I know you had coffee bender on here before and I can still taste the coffee in my Abrasive, would you mind grabbing me another one?" Where in turn the server would let the bartender know, the bartender would happily taste the abrasive, probably agree with you, run it a little more and then pour you your abrasive. Because I bet every Abrasive after that tasted fine.

The end.
Grumpy's Rules.
America!

 

Hey, It could have been worse http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...-piece-finger-arby-sandwich-article-1.1079966

 

Close enough: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/91420

 

This one incident is enough for you to never return to Grumpys Roseville?

 

Why are you so slow?

 

This was a great post. I think it's reasonable to expect high-quality pours, and I don't think that consumers should have to understand the mechanics of how a keg is switched out to be able to argue for that quality pour (e.g. shouldn't have to know how the watch works to tell the time.) That said, though, out of sheer curiosity I was going to ask about the process of cleaning a line and what is best practice when kegs are switched out. Thanks BLB - that explanation is illuminating.

I agree with several other folks here - I think it's reasonable to expect Grumpy's to pour quality beer, if for no other reason than they have a dedicated craft beer menu (and used to offer a weekly firkin at the Roseville location, though this may have been discontinued) and I think any establishment that offers that should be expected to serve high-quality pours. That said, Grumpy's has always been good about switching out a pint for a customer if it's clear that the customer has a problem with it (especially if the problem is as obvious and objective as a coffee-infused Abrasive.) A couple of weeks ago a Grumpy's Roseville server even offered to switch out a pint I was enjoying when she saw I wasn't drinking it very fast because she assumed I didn't like it (I assured her I was just savoring it.) Point being that their customer service in regards to quality craft beer is usually good. Obviously this is a privilege and not something to be abused, but particularly in OP's case I think that the server and bartender would have been happy to address the issue with a new pint.

 

Wow, while I am sorry you had one bad beer once, it really seems a bit extreme to have a rant of this level, to call fellow BAs names, and really to call out the place in general.
Also, it seems somewhat unfair/mistaken to compare a large bar to a small tap house that is run by a brewery. If have the taps at a large bar were empty, there would be hell to pay. I have been to TG when this has been the case. Did I rant and rave? No, I realized what their aspirations and limitations are.
While I am all for giving business to those that see standards the same as most BAs do, let us not tread on those that have been positives for the movement toward better beer. People make mistakes, severs are often under informed, and sometimes in the rush to provide customers with the beers they ordered, bartenders don't run their lines enough.
Relax, have and have a beer.

 

Great points!

In regards to the "first pour," I do have a quick story that makes "coffee" abrasive sound like a treat. Probably close to 15 years ago, a small pizza/brew pub beer spot right next door to a personal mail box that I maintained had quite an incident. This is the type of pizza/beer chain that normally hosts little leaguers and their families. So a father was talking to the manager about the beer and the manager said that he just had his lines cleaned and was going to give the dad the first pour so he would have the "freshest" beer possible. The manager was doing this because he was proud of their product and happy to convert somebody. From the details in the newspaper at the time, the father described it as hearing what sounded like "rice krispies" inside his head, as line cleaner burned through his throat. What had happened was that the place had contracted their line cleaning and the guy doing it for them was just obviously not qualified. He had either used too much caustic or not rinsed the equipment enough or had not properly instructed the manager how to pull through. This is the only article that I can still find about it...

http://articles.hbindependent.com/2...11_1_medical-costs-bill-marler-lamppost-pizza

 

for what it's worth, the abrasive i had there this afternoon wasn't real good. the flavor was a bit off, and the warm mug it was served in certainly didn't help.

 

I'll take a refrigerated beer in a warm glass any day over one served in a cold or "frosty" glass. Wondering how long the ice cold BMC mentality is going to last in certain parts of the U.S. craft beer scene.