Calling bottle shops to ask for whales

Yep. I always feel guilty for annoying the bejeesus out of them, but what choice do you have if you want it? Stores here are getting one case of BCBS.. There's no way anyone is getting their hands on it any other way than hounding them for when it's coming AND having the freedom to jump in the car and speed to the store when it finally comes in.

Just the nature of the beast, I guess.

 

I see both sides of the coin. On the one hand, these stores are businesses and the employees are being paid to do a job, whether that be stocking the shelves or answering the phone. If a question is asked it should be answered honestly. On the other hand, there are so many people that spend their day tracking down and buying as much of a limited release as they can find, I see where stores would not answer honestly. Personally, I don't chase beers as I don't have the time and I generally have my kids with me. But if I were to call a store to see if they had a beer come in, I would hope to get an honest answer because we all don't have the time to drive across town just to see if the beer came in.

 

It's one thing if they are price gouging.........but they have the right to sell what they want to who they want. And if I'm the bottle shop, I'm holding back the best rare beers for my customers who are loyal and patronize my store regularly. Just because some DB calls in.......that does not give him some kind of right to whatever beer is in the store. It's the way things work in free countries.

 

If I owned a shop I would have one of those messages that say we don't disclose qty. on special releases over the phone before the phone rings.

I can see owners getting feed up with the guy that only comes in for special releases, buys that one beer and leaves.

On the other hand if you want multiples you really have no choice but to be that guy.

So I have one simple rule, if the shop gouged, I buy and leave.
If not I buy something else, and divide my regular business between those shops.
This habit ends up being better the owner and myself.
If everyone followed this pattern, places that gouge lose craft beer customers and places that don't sell more beer and there for get better allocations.

 

This just happened to be the other day. I overheard an employee at this bottle shop I frequent regularly say "yea it's in a 4 pack, but it's $26. Want it?". He went in the back and came out with Bourbon County Barleywine. The customer freaks out and then he says "I like to reward regulars.".

#1 - I'm in there all the time. But I'm there to buy beer. Not socialize.

#2 - Keeping it in the back, out of view, is bullshit.

#3 - Doing this openly in front of other customers speaks volumes.

 

Yup, I hate this "build a relationship with your beer guy" stuff. I have a number of stores I go to regularly, but I'm not a real chatty guy, and these stores are usually fairly busy places overall, so I don't really have the chance to build a relationship. And besides, a lot of people in my area are looking for limited releases, so I'm sure most stores have a few dozen "friends" who try to jockey for limited stuff.

 

I work at a bottle shop in CO, and we get Pliny in probably once every month or two and it always comes on Fridays. I'm so sick of wiener's calling me and asking if we got Pliny in. However, I will always be truthful. Even if Joe Shmo calls asking for "Elder's Pliny", I will still let him know that, yes, we do indeed have Pliny the Elder in.

 

Also, when the Patagonia beer came out, I wanted to shoot myself. Every jackass wearing a Patagonia jacket and his mother came in asking for it for an entire month. Very annoying.

 

Beer is a luxury item, so it is categorically impossible to price gouge it.

Also, you seem to have a huge stick up your ass. Nobody is claiming that calling to inquire about the availability of something entitles you to buy it. What people are quite reasonably suggesting is that if they call and ask, they deserve an honest answer. If the store says "yes, but we're reserving it for regulars," so be it. I, and many others, think that sucks, but it isn't inexcusable. Outright lying is.

 

Same here. When I go to a liquor store it's to browse around and pick up beer; I'm not making a social call. At most, when I'm checking out I might make some small talk with the clerk about whatever beer I'm buying...not asking him how his wife and kids are.

Does the Apple store hold the newest iPhone in the back for regulars?

 

I support this. Screw hunters/hoarders.

 

you must be buying beer in the ATL...

 

I rarely do it, only if I dont have my phone to text them.

 

You guys didn't read the post about the guy who called looking for bourbon county to a small liquor store and the lady ends up selling him a case of cherry rye this week? Any effort you are willing to make may be worth while...

 

Whether someone is a "regular" or just stopping in for one specific thing, people tend to like the policies that benefit them and dislike the ones that don't. (I'm not singling you out OP - just the opposite).

 

I apologize if I have personally ever been a wiener to you . But I appreciate your honesty! I am relatively new to craft beer and was lucky enough to have Pliny as my introduction to IPA's several months back, therefore I am a periodic searcher/wiener.

 

I've had this happen in Chicago. Stopped in a store on my way through and asked if they got any OTA in, they said 'no man, maybe next week'. I was sad; but as I checked out, I saw a case on the counter, "Isn't that OTA right there?" "Yeah man, but I can't sell it to you, it's not priced and I am holding it for people." Oh, thats fine, at the point, I said no thanks to the $200+ of beer I had on the counter and went to a different shop that had no problem selling me a OTA and an RTA they still had.

I guess it's up to the owner with what he wants to do with a product, but with more and more limited releases, does that mean more and more beers that can't be sold to Joe Smoe? Perhaps, but that means I'll go to less and less stores and just go directly to the source and cut out the middle man, even if that means I miss out on certain releases.

 

Yep. Since I stopped going to that place a new placed opened that is a ten minute walk from my house and everybody who works there is really cool. I usually go in there after I play hockey on Friday afternoons and hang out and sample beers with them. I also bring stuff too that I got in beer trades and buy a lot of stuff. Like on Friday I picked up a bottle of Sweet Repute but also bought Hairy Eyeball and Harpoon Bronze King. I might go to Hop City for a special release just to make sure I get it but pretty much only go to this other place now.

They are honest and I can deal with that. When they thought they were only going to get a small allocation of something they pretty much have let me know there might only be enough for the employees to get, which is fine with me. They should get beer before I do imo. But they have been really great about everything.

 

I think its messed up to lie about it over the phone especially here on long island. Traffic is crazy, I work long hours, and there are beer people that are all over this stuff and if you werent there the day the BCBS variants came in you missed out unless you had a place that reserved them for you. Thankfully every shop I called was honest and that was probably about 10 places, I know they were honest because they all had gotten some in.

I know of a lot of places that put some to the side for true regulars, as in people that are there multiple times per week, and put the rest out sale. I think that's a good way to do it.

And also confused about the "whale status" of zombie dust and the commonality of kbs??

 

I get not wanting to say over the phone because it might not be there when the customer shows up depending on where they are coming from. It also prevents the whole "can you hold a bottle for me" business that I think most bottle shops are not comfortable with.

It would be ideal for them just to say they don't say over the phone instead of just saying "no".