Calling out breweries on the grand opening...

Having worked in a restaurant on opening day, its not really the prime example of the restaurant/service business. The quality and freshness of food of course but if the line is out the door on an hour table wait, which it was, service can only do so much. If you so choose to wait then that's ultimately on you. Your expectations are your own and should not effect the opinion of the food.

 

For sure a good brewer should have the beers in good shape for the opening. But in the quote as reported I don't see any way to tell whether the beers were actually poor or whether other disappointing parts of the opening color the rest of the subjective experience.

I've known folks for whom not waiting in line is important enough that they walk rather than wait, or that they actually leave if something is delayed or they spend time finding fault with their food and/or some of the other things etc. But if they personally are seated immediately and given immediate, attentive, experienced service they will praise ordinary food and way over tip.

So when I hear something like that quote from one single unknown anonymous person and think of how many times I've heard people on here bash beers and breweries I've enjoyed, lots of little warning bells go off in my head, but they don't tell me I'm hearing a report to be trusted about the beer, just that there might be a problem somewhere.

Want examples, check out the short video in the thread about Victory Brewers reading mean tweets.

 

I'm okay with people being critical from the start. Just because we all like beer doesn't mean we should lower our standards as a consumer. Also, feedback is necessary to help them improve.

 

I am willing to trust the OP since I have also experienced what he did, and have to believe I wasn't affected by any opening hoopla, and in other cases there wasn't any opening hoopla.

 

Sure, I've experienced that too, just as I've experienced a poor opening that had really good beer from an award winning brewer.

But for me its sort of like the difference between ratings alone and ratings with reviews. I want not only the numbers but also those impressions and I want impressions from multiple people. So when I can get those impressions I also want more information across reviewers, not just the highest scores or the lowest scores. No way I'm trusting a single rating or review from some anonymous person I've never met and don't know anything about. The warning alerts go off, but not the fire alarm.

 

This is where the wheels fall off. A grand opening as a must attend event ( who knows if the brewer/brewers have been vetted elsewhere) seems a little far fetched.

Now if it was Shaun Hill or Jean Van Roy opening a brewery and its opening day then it would be a valid point.

Scaling up a recipe from 5/10 gallons to 5bbls is hard enough, dialing it in working with a 20+ bbl system is even harder. Its hard to dump 5/10/20+ bbls of beer when you have no money coming in but its sometimes necessary if the beer is not up to par, but as far as the "make better beer" just seems subjective, maybe they want to make approachable beers and that is their business model and they are happy with the product. Solid Beers, well made beers, consistently well made beers are harder to make then the 1 or 4 earth shattering mind expanding beers that are possible from any facility.

Give the brewer sometime to settle in, let them dial in their beers but revisit them in the process. Give better feedback than "The beer was average" or "make better beer".

 

I think if we disregard a critique of the OP's credentials and use the post as a common shared experience we all, including you, have experienced, the post has more value.

 

Well then we'll have to agree to disagree since I'm not crticizing his credentials I'm saying I have no idea of what those credentials are.

I've read too many reviews to assume that the negative ones automatically tell me the beer is not good. Just as I don't trust ratings without reviews, I don't trust anonymous comments from unknown people. So the quotation in the OP would be for me an alert but it doesn't tell me there's a real fire, just that there might be a problem somewhere. It might be the beer. It might be the waiting. It might be the customer service. It might be disappointed expectations. It might be some combination of more than one, etc.

 

I guess with a bit of a search we could figure out what brewery it is, so I concede the point.

 

Dickmove

 

As people have said, there are bound to be "kinks" for any newly opened business, particularly a restaurant, brewery, or similar venture. Even with all the planning you can possibly do, there are so many factors involved and things you can't see coming.
Any business is incredibly fortunate to pull off an opening without a hitch, and sometimes a place needs to be open with what they have at the time in order to improve. When Toldeo's newest brewery opened last year, they had three beers total available and ran out of all but one on opening weekend. Now they sell a dozen or more of their own and have been able to expand to offer some guest taps and some higher-shelf spirits as well.
I also know the difficulty (and not even dealing with alcohol) of attempting to open a small business with extremely limited capital. I'm running my coffee shop on one day a week offering drinks for donations only (and have been for months) until we can get the inspections needed to open full time. One day, I hope to offer some taps, bottled beer, and wine as well, but that's a long way off.

 

I have no idea the specifics of this post, but I went to a brewery grand opening this past weekend atWoodburn Brewery in Cincinnati (grand opening might be a stretch, they're still finishing some construction, they just had their first open to the public event). They had great beer, had great music and overall I left impressed, this shows me that when you put thought into your business, use successful and talented people, then you will do well. Was it completely perfect? Probably not, nothing is, but they hit all the important things, good service, sufficient product, well thought out layout.

On your first day, your product should be the best it will be for the next year or two. If I go and get meh beer on my first visit, I'm not coming back any time soon, I'm going to share my low opinion of your quality within my sphere of influence and I'm not going to apologize for it. I've used this example a thousand times, if I go to a restaurant the first or second day, order a steak and get served a charred hockey puck, that restaurant sucks, same with beer at a new brewery. Your IPA is on point, your stout is perfect and but your hefeweizen sucks? Don't sell the hefeweizen, dump it and put a guest tap on (assuming you legally can).

I'm tired of this "aww, they're new, they shouldn't be held to the same standards as another brewery" crap.

 

It's a fair point, but dickish to post about it. There's very few businesses (breweries or restaurants or sporting good stores or . . . ) that hit the ground running without any kinks.

I don't go to places at first for this reason. And if I do, I'd have reasonable expectations.

 

And in those cases where some business does pull off hitting the ground running without any kinks, it almost never gets the "publicity" the others get.

 

Hmmm brewery "grand openings" usually check all the boxes for things I hate when going out...

1. Inexperienced staff? -check
2. Over-crowded? -check
3. Slow service because of the above? -check
4. Loud? -check
5. Beers not dialed in? -Usually a check, and even if the beers are good 1-4 above ruin my time anyway.

No thanks. I'll check out the brewery a couple months after opening.

Yeah. Human perceptions are so fickle that a bad experience in any one of those could taint the other experiences. With all that can go wrong in a large popular event, I give them a bit of a pass. If they have problems on a standard evening, then they deserve all the criticism.

 

At first (and second...) pass I agreed that it was indeed a dickish post, but after reading it a few more times, it sunk in that this was posted within a FB group (disclaimer - if this was NOT a FB group specifically aimed towards beer scene, I rescind my free pass on not being dickish!) While I would have liked to see the FB poster take their own advice and "relax" a little, I tend to think that within the context of the group, it was fair enough, seeing as how the specific criticism on the beer (average at best) is what folks in that group likely expect. As to the "must event", again, perhaps in this group, the opening was regarded as a major thing, or at least to the FB poster it was.

Had this post been on Yelp, I would have a much harder time with it. As a post on a FB beer group, it's probably a bit more acceptable. Not saying I'd "like" it, just saying that at least it's geared towards the right crowd and not running off tourists or "beer as an afterthought" potential customer base.

Note to tap rooms, breweries and brew pubs that are opening soon - "soft opening". Just saying.

 

I'm landing at this being a "half a dick", maybe three-quarters... Openings aren't always the best time judge no mater how well thought out and we only have the FB comment about the degree of "busy". To me that is the "dick" part - new place, new roles for people, serving the public for the first time - it doesn't go like clockwork. Twenty minutes in the context provided does not seem excessive to me. I think the comment about the wait, as vague as it is since it doesn't really say anything about the service or atmosphere, is a dickish whine that is just saying "I didn't get mine fast enough".

While we have no idea of the FB poster's experience with beer, he does comment that the beers were "average". Maybe this isn't quite so dickish. Vague maybe and lacking credibility by us here. I will cut a new brewery some slack, but if mediocrity (or worse) remains the norm then I won't go back. You are taking my money in exchange for a product - it doesn't have to be the "best ever", but it should be clean, close to the style it is purported to be, and free from flaws. I'm certainly in the camp that believes there are too many breweries that start out making "bad" beers (and yes that is relative and subjective) and just continue that way because the rabid locavores feed the delusion.

But I also think expectations - specifically about beer - are often unrealistic. Not every beer can (or should) be a mountaintop experience. So in this aspect of the quoted statement, I think it depends on the expectations in FB guy's mind which we will never know. It could therefore be dickish (well, it took me forever to get my beer so I'm gonna say it sucked), thus elevating the comments to full boner status, or not. Did he expect a Beervana experience based on local hype, or was he just expecting a decent beer and a good time? When I go to these things (or any new to me brewery) I do try to check my expectations and focus on enjoying the experience. If I just "don't like" the beer that is one thing. If it's obviously flawed right out of the gate that's another - maybe some additional homework was needed. If it stays that way, then maybe find something else to do.

It does sound like there was some local hype, although we don't have a context for "over capacity". A soft opening could help work out the kinks, but I don't think even that can prepare an establishment and employee teams for the real deal. How can you truly be prepared for a zombie swarm if it happens? Just thinking about how fast word spreads and how quickly expectations build these days - it has to be tough. We just had a Sonic open within a few miles of my house - they have funny commercials, so the missus and I thought what the hell...sure... The line of cars extended about a mile and we waved as we drove past... My wife's high school students say they have sat for an hour or more! Although I'm sure the franchisee expected a strong opening, I'm not sure they or the town were prepared for the hoard to descend quite like that.

 

There was a brewpub not too far from me that opened and closed in a relatively short timeframe. The reports are that the beers were not ‘ready for primetime’ when they opened.

Brewing (e.g., brewpubs) is a very competitive business in the Philly area. If you open when you are not truly ready going out of business is a distinct possibility here.

You can read more about Guild Hall here: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/guild-hall-brewing-jenkintown-pa-closing.349157/

Cheers!

P.S. I know the brewer at Guild Hall (Owen Hutchins) since he worked at my Local Homebrew Store where I bought my first homebrewing kit over 20 years ago. Owen was (and still is) a talented brewer but he had real learning/start-up issues with the brewing equipment at Guild Hall. There were also lack of capital issues with this business.

 

Yeah, to me it is a long term view vs. a short term view. Making an unfavorable impression can have very negative consequences. I avoid any new brewery, partly to spare them from their own mistakes and also to spare myself from bad experiences.

Dial it in. Dump the batches, and a soft opening with selected people (no charge). Seems the right way to go.

 

This.
If I go to a new brewery and experience a crowded tap room, that's par for the course. But if I get a diacetyl laden beer, or acetaldehyde in there, I won't be back. If you are so eager to serve shitty beer and compromise your reputation for a buck, good luck.