Craft Beer Kings, El Monte, CA

@rboinski is back. Did you ever make good on your trade?

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bad-trader-rboinski.130451/

 

shit just got real.

 

Thanks for the heads up that oneone is claiming i didn't send beer, I made good on all trades I made. Stopped trading and visiting this site for roughly a year so had no idea someone was claiming this. What is this doing in a thread about cbk? At least message me that a thread exists with people claiming I did not make good on a trade so I can make it up to them?

 

Im sure you got some of the notifications when @williamjbauer posted

@rboinski

 

Actually he got in touch a few times and never made good on any promises to fix the problem. He got in touch a few months after paypal froze his account and the payment that was made to him for a gogetitbro he promised to do for ffac13 that never happened. I also sent a huge box of heady and hill farmstead beers in exchange for Russian River beers that he never sent as well. He messaged me today to clear his name but I'm pretty skeptical of further BS being flung at me.
@rboinski

 

I think my frustration with CBK's tactics is that their ethos seems to go against a fundamental aspect of my enjoyment of the craft beer scene -- the sense of community that it builds. Yes, beer is tasty but in addition to that I get to share that beer with people that I enjoy being around. What has drawn me deeper and deeper into the culture is that most people that I have met echo this spirit of generosity.

Sharing a hard to find beer, or for that matter, making sure that other people have access to it is an act of kindness that in a small way grows the community into a bigger one. I would argue that this communal spirit is the reason that a website like BeerAdvocate even exists at all . It is too rare in the world to find such a large group of people that can agree on the kind of selflessness that generally exists in this thing of ours.

Here's the rub though, the CBK attitude and ideology seem to be the antithesis of what brings us to this site in the first place. Instead of generosity it seems that CBK brings an element of greed and opportunism onto the scene that is usually not only missing from our community but is actively fought against.

I have been trying to figure out why this thread about CBK has so much heat . Why CBK and Moe instead of one of the many other stores that price gouge?

The latest dose of vitriol towards CBK and Moe has helped me realize what it is. Moe is a rare hybrid, someone that really blurs the lines between being one of us , a believer in the community, and being one of them, a business owner trying to make a living.

The tough thing for me to admit though is that it is a choice that I make. I misconstrue Moe's instagram posts as evangelism for the craft beer community instead of what they really are which is a marketing tactic. Once we start viewing Moe's actions in the context of business owner/capitalist the lines become much clearer.

I tend to shy away from us vs. them statements like the one I made above and I am positive the lines blur somewhere in there but my guess is that Moe and CBK are engaging with the craft beer scene in fundamentally different way than we are. They are exploiting flaws in a system that are there to exploit. They are here to make money and maybe taste a few walez along the way.

It seems to me that Moe is quickly becoming the Prince Joffrey of the SoCal craft beer scene I am not sure how fair it is because on the one hand I understand a businessman's point of view but on the other hand I am as pissed off as many of you guys are by his and his company's practices and the way they don't line up ethically with the ones this community cares about.

The good thing about calling him out on this thread is that it does help others in the community become aware of what is going on but I wouldn't expect this to end up as a dialogue between us and Moe simply because our worldviews are so different.

One can hope that Moe in reading this thread will realize that some of his actions will end up hurting his business but to expecting him to acknowledge his actions as greedy is probably not realistic. My guess is that to him they are business tactics and as such he might feel that they are justified.

This leaves us at a crossroads because unless Moe is willing to have a dialogue we only have one path to go down. By not acknowledging our concerns the situation unfortunately becomes the community vs Moe and CBK.

On our end, and I know this is an oft repeated sentiment in this thread, if you disagree with the way CBK or Moe do things vote with your wallet or post on this thread. Just as CBK is free to overcharge for beer, cut in line and resell bottles we all have the ability to just stop buying beer from them, trading with them as well as the ability to let the community know whats going on.

As for Moe and CBK this thread has 11k views and counting my guess is Moe's silence on the topic will be damning enough.


I'll shut up now.

 

Moe strikes me as 95% hustler, and 5% beer advocate. I don't take any issue with him trying to make a few bucks, the issue here is that he's exploiting this site to do it. He comes off as a hustler who is ambiguously (and somewhat cleverly) disguised as an advocate.

 

It appears as though craft beer is at a crossroads. Its at that point (and has been for a while) where it has stopped being a fun hobby and started being a money making vehicle for some. Moe is able to participate/get away with beer douchbaggary because we allow/feed it. On one hand good for him, he sees grown ass men going to ridiculous lengths as well as pay big sums of money for beer….fucking beer, and he sees dollar signs.

If no one buys his shit or gives him the light of day he is powerless.
Everyone loves to bitch about how horrible the Kardashian's are but, why are they on TV. People watch em. If no one watches they will be a distant memory.

Moe is surly not the first nor will he be the last. With craft growing year over year I suspect this type of behavior will be more prominent.
Yes it sucks, but as mentioned by others, whenever you have a supply/demand problem this type of behavior is sure to occur.

 

in Kardashian's defense, in her glory days Kim kind of had it going on. let's be honest here

 

That's just the "King's Reserve".

 

Don't you mean "Kraft Beer Kreeps"?

 

It sounds bad, but anybody that didn't get Feral Vin has only themselves to blame. The tickets stuck around for like a month.

Of course if he had tickets that's a other issue. They claimed to have allocated enough for everyone who had a ticket.

 

Agreed, that's pretty bad. Having never been to his store or interacted with him at all, whenever I see his posts I always just assumed that he did what he did to take care of trading partners or something, haha.

 

"Craft Beer Kings" is having a cellar sale this sunday, AKA Butt Penetration Sale!

 

Are they going to be having more 100% discount beers?

 

"good stuff Moe! #moeing"
"nice moe!"
"Very generous of you Moe!"
"Nice job, Moe. Cheers buddy!"
"Nice job Moe-cha-cho!"

 

Because shipping upcharge.

Was going to point out how much you'd have to buy in a year to cover $350, but...

Yeah this just about covers it. That's a crazy membership price, no matter how you slice it. Of course, if premium/hard to get beers (across the industry) were priced on par with demand, this kind of thing would be much more difficult...

Brilliant. 100% discount... so those beers are free?

The problem is that there are people who take advantage of the situation in pretty much every walk of life. I have no doubt that Moe/CBK is a good dude/site and is passionate about craft beer. But it's hard not to believe he's taking advantage of other people's passion for craft beer based on the volume of replies on this thread.

Disclaimer: I've purchased from CBK on multiple occasions and have never had a sour experience. That said, I completely see where some of the complaints on this thread are coming from.

 

Over priced shelf beer. $25 Parabola etc. A 'loon that I bought off a shelf for 26 last week was 34. BB26 and DDBAfor 20. Fuck this shitty place. Still stupid people bought it all, so, fuck us?

 

We've got BB26 for 12 bucks out in these parts.

 

Just my opinion, but I thought it was good. I stuck to stuff I thought was a good deal, and with the free shipping I made out. Paid $15 for a Black Butte, $15.99 for a 375 of the loons (got the kriek and lambic), 20 for the stickee monkee (exactly what I paid at total wine for it in VA a few months ago).


If I was to do trades for any of those beers, at the end of the day I'd end up spending more money on buying the beer to trade, and then paying for shipping.