Four Firkins

And this has got to be the most ridiculous res....wait. This is BA, nevermind.

It was pretty clear to me that what he was saying was that FF is going to have a hard time impressing many of us who go into a store knowing exactly what we are looking for and are not interested in help/suggestions from the staff. On the other hand, clearly there are many people new to the craft beer scene that appreciate this kind of service and knowledge. If people want to pay a bit extra for this, that's their decision. They may or may not choose to shop elsewhere when they decide they don't need the added beer knowledge (or fancy ambience, if you're convinced that MGM/Total Wine/Big Top/etc. offer the same knowledge - I'm not).

And speaking of, hilarious that you mention a "right price". Did you think that one out? While the extra 10-25% (??) FF charges over some places is enough to dissuade many of us, it's nothing compared to the jacked up prices on special releases/limited beers that many stores offer. Were you outside Surdyck's protesting when they were selling Darkness at much higher rates than everyone else?

 

My take:

FF is a fantastic beer store for someone who is not a beer fanatic. Both my mother and my ex-girlfriend had really good experiences there buying beer for me, which would probably be hard for most of you reading this. With both of them having no idea about beer, they were able to get a really interesting mix of beer for me, only based on the help of the workers there. I frequent a lot of the other top places in the metro and do not have confidence that I would've had such a good mix, regardless of how much I like them.

I am not a fan of and will not support what they are doing to raise funds, but more power to them that it is actually working. It won't stop me from stopping in on occasion like usual.

 

City Pages article on FF

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2014/04/four_firkins_fu.php

 

Maybe the article will help, but they've definitely hit a wall at this point. It's just over$19,500, that's just $1000 over the past couple days.

 

Jim at Blue Max has always helped my wife and surlytwinsfan's wife. There are some other very knowledgeable employees there too.

 

Just read this, it is very disappointing when you believe that your competition does not know what they are doing. I am in sales and one thing you never do is underestimate your competition or put them down. The "Walmartization" of liquor stores WILL hurt him. I have been to Total Wine, I will be there again. They were very helpful and they had just as many singles as FF has had. You don't get to 100 stores by neglecting your customers. I thought I even saw an education center in there.

As for fresh beer, the better stores will certainly turn their beer over. That is why they are the better stores. Are you going to tell me that Haskell's, the Corporate MGM, and Total Wine don't know how to turn beer over? I bet they can look at their computer and find out that beer "A" sells well in Burnsville but does not sell well in Eagan. Guess what, more of that beer goes to a place that sells better. There are smaller mom and pop stores that have a problem with old, stale craft beer. If I recall, once the beer is "out of date" don't the distros have to take it back?

For him to infer that if you shop at my store, you will always get fresh beer and if you shop somewhere else, you may be getting stale beer is

 

Ditto, Daniel at Stinson's...guy will help anyone find whatever it is that might fit their palate.

 

This!!
Best store in the cities for my money without the pretense of being a "destination" store.

 

I check dates everywhere I go. I find LOTS of stale/older than 4 month beer (hoppy beer is all im referring to) around at many of the stores mentioned above. you pay a premium at the firkins because they buy in smaller quantity and dont get the volume discount, among other reasons. I do give them props for keeping things fresh. You can find fresh beer at other places but you should double check based on my experience, so I think alvey has a semi valid point. They go above 'average' stores to keep their inventory small and fresh (but I wouldnt group places like blue max or stinson in the 'average category') Im not trying to toot their horn; its just an observation.

 

Perhaps you are not a big reader? I've read several more ridiculous things than this comment IN THIS VERY THREAD.

The "uphill battle" comment is not specific to FF, but to any stores which cater to the craft market. Your response actually gets at my point in that it is very easy for interested consumers to educate themselves about beer on their own, so the extra value of having staff which is well equipped to educate customers (e.g. cicerone certified) is diminished or nonexistent for those customers. I stand by my point that when many of us walk into a liquor store we pretty much know what we want and aren't looking for someone to help educate us, so for a store that postures itself as providing that exact service we are a harder sell.

They invest the time and money for several of their people on staff to be cicerone certified, and some people value that. They offer numerous free educational classes (and some which they charge for) throughout the year with brewers, authors, beer historians, etc., and some people value those. They sell books on beer styles, history, etc. which I don't typically see at liquor stores, and some people value those. They sent an entire bus full of their customers to New Ulm from the Twin Cities to tour the Schell's brewery at their own expense, and some people valued that. Some people even value the "fancy ambience" and breweriana displays which you quickly dismiss.

I guess if you discount/ignore all of those things, then your statement that "They offer nothing more than..." is accurate. There are a few other stores who do some of those things to varying degrees, but most do not, and it is clear that FF is committed to making it part of their business model.

I completely understand the animosity over their fundraising approach. I completely understand anyone who wants to say "I don't give a shit about all that other stuff, I just want to buy my beers and get out of there". It's obviously not the store for them. But it is ignorant to dismiss "all that other stuff" as being of no real value, simply because it is of no real value TO YOU.

tl;dr We are lucky to have MANY great options in this market to buy craft beer, and can choose those which strike the right balance of price/selection/ambiance/attitude for us. FF is just one of those options and they are doing their thing, their way, and it might not be right for you. However, it is right for lots of people no matter how much you may disagree.

(edit: just saw that GeezLynn handled this response with much more brevity than I did above. also just learned that ambiance and ambience are two acceptable spellings for the exact same word, although the BA spell-checker prefers the less common ambiance.)

 

These guys knock it out of the park with customer service every single time! You can actually have a conversation with these guys. You know something they don't they keep asking questions about it they want to be educated. Their prices are spot on as well. I'd recommend this store to anyone no mater what part of the metro you live in.

 

I will have to check out Stinson, as I have only heard good things!

 

Alvey's first response, if accurate, is outstanding. His second response was gibberish straight outta Dilbert or Office Space. I was hoping he'd use the words "value add" -it's my favorite nonsense jargon term.

I'll echo what others have said: FF's ability to help noobs is no better than what I've seen at Blue Max or Heritage. And those guys will even help someone who just wants some Blue Moon.

 

Sums it up nicely. I think FF is a great store that fills a niche that is not necessarily in the wheelhouse of many here. I rarely shop there because it's completely across town, and the limited releases sell out in 4 minutes, and the prices are high, and I don't need knowledgeable staff (most times), and I'm certainly not going to give them money to expand their business. But I still see it as an asset to the community (both in the SLP/MSP metro sense and the craft beer sense), and hope they continue to stay in business.

 

It is a great store.

 

Having "fresh" beer in stock is important, but like someone way up in this thread mentioned, FF will be completely sold out of a seasonal/special release because they buy in smaller quantities to keep "fresh" beer. Lagunitas Sucks was the example used. They were sold out in a short amount of time where as most other of the great beer stores around the metro had it for at least a couple of weeks.

I'd rather have a two week old IPA than not have it at all.

 

Reading this thread re-enforced that there are a lot of great craft beer places in the cities...and living in Roch I'm jealous. I suppose us Roch BAs could start a kickstarter/indeigogocampaign to fund one...

 

This, I stopped reading the CityPage article after he used the term 'walmartization'.

 

Unlike some fools around town Jim's ego seems to be remained in check.

 

I would be too rude to 90% of the customers when they asked if Shock Top or Blue Moon was better. But yeah, that would be cool.