Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project in MN??

yes they were here and available 2009/ 2010 bought several bottles@ zipps and lyndale liquors not sure what happened but they had a falling out with the distributor in MN wish they were still here

 

Their distributor who has since gone out of business stiffed them on payment for a fairly large amount of money.

 

We get several Pretty Things offerings here in the Iowa City area.

 

It was terrible they got stiffed and will probably never come back. I really miss Pretty Things. Didn't the same thing happen with Three Floyds and Dogfish Head?

 

^ This ^

 

The same thing happened quite a few years ago (think late 90's) with many of the same people involved.

Sadly one of the main common denominators is now working with another distributor and importing beer from other breweries. This new distributor is much larger and less likely to screw these small breweries, but I fear for some of them.

 

Incorrect. The beer people who brought us Three Floyds and Dogfishead have nothing to do with what happened to Pretty Little Things.

 

I know at least one of the people involved in the Pretty things debacle (which included a few other breweries as well) were also involved in another distributor who ended up screwing a few breweries, but it was long before my time so I don't know exactly who as I don't care enough to research it further.

 

The owner of the distributor of Pretty Things didn't pay breweries or wineries. The people you are likely thinking about did not have anything to do with them unfortunately not getting paid.

 

Two of the other breweries that got the shaft along with Pretty Things were French Broad and Hoppy Brewing.

Wasn't it All Saints that handled Three Floyds and Dogfish Head?

 

You can find a hint of Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project in Collaboration #3 brewed at Boulevard. It's an English-Style Stingo Ale and was recently released in Minnesota. Just thought I would through that out there.

 

Yikes. A person tends to always look at the source when someone speaks bad of you, or spreads vicious lies, and frankly that is what I have done over the last couple years.

But, with threads like this that seem to never die, the same people are still spreading these lies, and as much as I have been advised to consider the source and just ignore these ugly lies, I believe that now I have to respond and it’s time to set the record straight.

My name is Thomas Keim, and I first got into the distribution of craft breweries in Minnesota in 1991, I represented a literal who's who of early craft brewers back then; Anderson Valley Brewing, Lost Coast, Rogue Brewing, Maritime Pacific, New Belgium, Left Hand, Great Divide, Celis Brewery and the list goes on and on. In '94 I met two gentlemen who wanted to get into the importing side of the beer business, and helped them start All Saints Brands. Traveling with them to Europe quite frequently, we selected a terrific portfolio of European breweries, I arranged complete financing for them and incorporated all of my American craft brewers and All Saints Brands was born.

As the young staff grew at All Saints, I started a wine division for them, letting the younger layer of staff take over the beer end and eventually moved to California in 1999/2000.

Three years later, All Saints Brands went bankrupt, being gutted by a less than honest bookkeeper - a move that caught the entire staff by surprise, and left many breweries without invoices paid. A number of breweries were caught up in the mess, with Three Floyds and Dogfish Head Brewing the most prominent breweries to get "stiffed". (The ironic thing about this is, 3-4 All Saints Brands employees that WERE with the company during this debacle are still in the industry today, and these ugly lies don’t seem to follow them around).

Now I had been in California for three years when this happened and was in no way involved with All Saints Brands at that time. So we can put that Dogfish Head/Three Floyds lie to rest for good.

In 2007, I started a company called “99 Bottles” to distribute craft beers in Minnesota while still living in California. I thought I would be able to live in Minnesota half the time and run the company while still living in California, but this didn’t work out, and I had to sell the company to a large local wholesaler who wanted to expand their craft beer selection. I would have kept the company longer, but finances got tight, and I wanted to make sure that all the breweries got paid on time, hence the quick move to the new wholesaler and all the breweries never missed a beat (Furthermore, Dark Horse, Fish Brewing, New England Brewing, Celis) and all were paid - on time.

I finally moved back to Minnesota in late 2009, and before I had any idea of what I was going to do, I got a call from an old friend in the business who needed help liquidating his company. The story was, he was being ***** by his bank and being forced to shut down. Now this man had been in the wine business in Minnesota for 25+ years having worked with all the top wine & liquor companies and was considered one of the top salespersons in the state. I had always trusted him, and considered him a hard worker. I had no idea I was being lied to until much after the company was finally liquidated the following Spring and a new company was founded with fresh financing.

By the time I had set up his new beer program with promised cash, I was finally finding out how dishonest this person really was, the problem was, I was tied into 4-5 breweries that were shipping product into the state, and had outstanding bills that I felt personally responsible for. It took about a year to squeeze out of this horrible situation, but I was able to get (almost) all of the breweries paid, and made up excuses over why we just couldn't ship any more beer from them into the State (Geary, Hoppy and French Broad were all paid in full, I just didn't want them to get stiffed, so I refused to bring anymore beer in from them while with this dishonest company

B the Spring of 2011, I still had two breweries that had not been paid; Bayern Brewery and Pretty Things. This company was doing so much business with Bayern that they kept shipping more beer to them, keeping me tied to these thieves.

By now, my ruse to these thieves had caught up with me - I was putting in phony purchase orders from local retailers to make sure that breweries were to get paid (with the promise that they would make more money on the next beer shipment's purchase order) - only to have the brewery not ship the goods under my direction. This worked for all the breweries but Bayern and Pretty Things. I had Pretty Things on a “ship only after they received a check” type situation, but the “thieves” had gone behind my back, telling owner Dan Paquette a “check was in the mail” and received another large shipment that they stiffed Dan on as well. I hounded and hounded these “thieves” for months on end, being told at least once every other week that they would “pay Pretty Things this week” and opposite weeks from that being told that a “check was in the mail to Pretty Things”.

By then I was exposed, and could do no more than try and get all the stiffed wineries, distilleries and breweries from the previous and present enterprises these “thieves” ran paid (that I slowly found out after the new company started) and tried to get everyone together to build one big lawsuit against "the thieves".

To end this long-winded story, no one feels worse about Pretty Things not being here than I do, Dan Paquette is one of the sweetest, nicest men I have ever met in the craft beer industry, and feel horrible about him getting stiffed. Today, I am still in infrequent contact with a group of lawyers chasing these “thieves” and have always worked diligently trying to make things “right” - I was as “hoodwinked” by these thieves as the brewers were, and lost a nice chunk of cash myself in this ordeal.

You live and you learn with these things, I realize that this was an isolated situation with these “thieves”, and the bulk of the people I work with today couldn’t be nicer and more trustworthy.

It couldn’t be more complicated, and my utmost apologies for rambling, but everything ties together here, and I had to lay everything out on the line. Today my company represents our products for the entire Midwest and we work with a terrific group of wholesalers in each state we are in.

I just hope this explains what really happened, and we can just move on. Thanks - Tom

And - any questions at all - please check with these guys -

GEARY BREWING COMPANY - (207) 878-2337
HOPPY BREWING COMPANY - (916) 451-4677
FRENCH BROAD BREWING - (828) 277-0222
PRETTY THINGS BEER PROJECT - (617) 682-6419
BAYERN BREWING - (406) 721-1482
FURTHERMORE BREWING - (608) 588-3300
DARK HORSE BREWING - (269) 781-9940
CELIS BEER - (517) 521-3600
NEW ENGLAND BREWING CO. - (203) 387-2222
FISH BREWING - (360) 943-6480

 

I literally reread this whole thread thee times and everything anybody else wrote can be annotated to jive with this poorly comma-ed missive. Utterly confounded.

 

After ONE reading, the explanation by ChristvsWarhol made perfect sense to me evilgenius1917, unlike your gobble-de-gook. You read it HOW MANY TIMES..."thee"?

 

Well explained-thanks for taking the time to post.

 

Yes ASB distributed TFF, DFH and others.

 

I read it th,ee times. Read it again.

 

I read it for times and still don't really grasp it.