Should Bottle Shops Allow Holds?

I think it's best practice to display all beers for sale to all customers. This seems both the most egalitarian course and the best course for business. Set a limit, if necessary, but don't hide some away for only a select few. Unless your bar/store is in bad shape you'll likely have more regulars who want a limited release than bottles of it, and every customer who walks in should be viewed as a new potential regular. People are more likely to do business with an establishment that they feel treats them well, as opposed to one that they feel treats them like they're second class.

 

That customer should know that there is something coming out and be there. So yeah. I walk in in and get the same releases as the guy kissing ass, having vapid conversations, and gifting cans of heady to store owners. The stores still do just fine.

 

I see where your frustration comes from, but I have no issues with stores doing this. If you are loyal to a store they will help you out, I have a store by me that has done this fairly often with great beers and they have held stuff I have forgotten to ask for because they know me. Try to find a good locally owned store and just talk to the head beer guy(s), if you give them your business often they will help you out. You have to remember sometimes stores are doing this due to extremely low supply, like the store I go to often only got one case of Abraxas, so they saved the 12 bottles bottles they got for customers they knew really just wanted the beer instead of leaving it to a first come first serve deal.

Long story short, talk to owners and the people ordering the beer, show loyalty to a store and they will help you out when they get whales.

 

I am completely in favor of the keep it behind the counter in plain sight of the customer and limit customer to 1 or 2 pp method. Keeping it in some back office or storeroom is just annoying for everyone involved, merchant and customer alike.

 

sorry, that is not the way the world works.

 

disagree, people take care of those who take care of them- or should. I know somebody who is a loyal customer (and great tipper) at his local brewery. Big line out front for a release and he gets a couple of four packs sitting out on the loading dock at the same time. Just the way people are.

 

I guess everyone has a line. I’d consider myself a generous tipper in a bar/brewery setting. That’s because the bartender is taking care of me (pouring me beers, making sure I have one in front of me, getting me water, giving me the odd buy back, blah blah). And also let’s not forget that type of job often requires tips to get by.

Bringing beer to the beer guy / owner at a store in order to be given the privilege of PAYING them for other beer - that’s fairly ridiculous. If he/she is a legit friend, and is GIVING you a beer from their allotment in return for something you bring them (aka a trade), then different story.

I’ve witnessed this beer-giving thing probably about five times. A couple times it was clearly a case of a friend dropping off some beers for people to try. The other three were clearly of the ingratiating oneself variety, and were frankly a fucking weird/awkward thing for both the employee/owner, me, and anyone else that had the misfortune of witnessing it.

Do people that bring beer to stores also throw them a $20 instead when there’s no beer to hand?

 

I've found that buying $1,000 worth of wine each month helps me get specialty beers.

 

Not as silly as the store manager I bought for years from, telling me the story of a guy who showed up one day at his store and wanted to buy the entire allotment of Great Lakes Christmas Ale (which by the way was about 80+ cases)...

He basically told him off..

It also just goes to show how ridiculous the whole thing is. What's hot today is out of fashion tomorrow.

 

Exactly! As it's the "hype train" that seems to be guiding "what is allowed to be kept in the back room." And on top of it, allow the store, at least in my case to get to that "extra buck" for the "hyped up" beer.

One thing that did have me wondering was if it was a sort of a "bait and switch" sort of thing that guy thought he could get me on - the "hey, look at the ratings on this ~ $30" bomber by Founders when no one seems to barely know anything about 14th Star's Bourbon Barrel Impy Stout."

If no one knows about certain beers and the "beer guy" just sits behind the counter watching customers who grab bottles of the 14th Star beer, is he doing this with other people?

Lol, kinda funny to me if he is, but he should know that most customers or at least most "beer connoisseurs" in this day and age can't be "taken."

Also, I do have a bottle of Bell's Black Note that I hope to be opening up in the near future, hopefully, I like it and am trying to think bad things about this. Do you mind me asking how many times and/or vintages of Black Note you have had?

edit: I had to go and check your numbers on Black Note and it looks like you really like it.

 

The bottle shop I buy from most frequently posts all of there new releases on Facebook and leaves everything on the shelves with limits clearly posted. It is a small places that doesn't get a ton of most releases, but they at least get a little bit of everything. It is fair and everything is at or below MSRP.

The bottle shop that is closest to my house that I stop at every month or so will leave bottles of the limited releases on the counter. The bulk is behind the counter and is doled out (with limits) as people ask for it. If it lasts for more than a day, it moves out from behind the counter. I like this method as well. At least I know what they have without having to ask.

Another place in town keeps limited stuff behind the counter and you have to ask for it. The owner of the store was behind the counter every time I went in (about 5 times). He is very coy about it and never seems to give me a straight answer. I do not shop there anymore.

I am not a fan of holding stuff in back or behind the counter, regardless of the reason.

 

I guess you did not work there long enough to be shown the portal. I know they exist.

Enjoy

 

Yes. It actually does. I currently live in that world. I'll pretend to like the "beer guy" the day after I die. Still get all the same beers as the fools who do.

 

I can tell you people do that and my former manager was hypothetically fellated for holding the KBS and bourbon county cases from people for weeks while his "friends" were on a list. I sold the bottles on that list out of spite. First come first serve.

 

No worries, I appreciate your thoughts if anything. I have to take a ferry across that narrow lake between me and New York just to get any Bell's. But a good dude sent me the latest one. Still, I debate when I'm going to open it. One of these days, I'll open it.

Thanks. Okay, sorry for the "rabbit trail." But back to the thread topic now.

 

At the end of the day the regular beer hunter who builds a rapport with the retailers and the occasional rep who shows up will get the beer set aside for them no matter what, it's just an instant deduction from the cases. I have witnessed it and have been party to it too many times.

 

Well, BA Java Ten Fidy was brewery only, so if you're the guy going into local liquor stores asking for that kind of thing, then A) you don't know your beers all that well, and B) local liquor stores are probably tired of telling you they can't just get their mitts on any damn beer in the universe; it has to be distributed in their area. This smells of the kind of person that walks into a liquor store in South Dakota and is pissed they don't have Heady Topper...