How do you handle quality issues with your local brewers?

This may not be quite on topic, but since we're also discussing the handling of these issues by the breweries, I recently had a customer service experience that left me quite baffled. I wrote to a UK brewer enquiring about their best by dates because I had ordered one of their beers online and wanted to know how fresh it was.

Please note that this was not a quality issue, the beer was fine, I was just curious how fresh it was and how long they set their best by dates for. They eventually got back to me about it and even offered to send me a beer fresh off the bottling line if I was based in the UK.

I told them that while I wasn't based in the UK, as luck would have it I was currently involved in a beer trade with someone from the UK and they could send the beer to him to be included in the trade if they didn't mind. They replied that was no problem at all and that they would send it to him.

That was three weeks ago and they have not responded to any of my mails since I sent them the address of my trade partner nor have they actually sent the beer. I very much get the feeling that the only reason they made that offer in the first place was because they thought that since I wasn't based in the UK, I couldn't take them up on it anyway.

They didn't even bother to send me a bullshit excuse or anything, just completely ghosted me. Don't get me wrong, know that they don't owe me anything, but once you make an offer like that, you should really honor it as well. That is just piss-poor conduct by one of the actually higher regarded UK craft breweries.

 

I don't know the laws on shipping alcohol in England, but I know that the situation you described here would never fly in the US. I wonder if whoever told you they could send the beer to a third party so he could send it to you mentioned it to someone else and was essentially laughed at and told no way.

 

I'm really not aware of any such issues in the UK, where I also lived for 10 years, or anywhere in Europe, really. My trading partner doesn't seem to be either. I think that all these odd, draconian rules and regulations that you have in the US regarding the shipment of alcohol all pretty much date back to the prohibition? That's not something that we had to deal with in Europe, for the most part.

Also, even if there was such an issue, they could have at least told me so instead of just ghosting me like that. That simply is no way to behave for anyone dealing with customer service in a professional capacity. Having said that, they did actually get back to me today after I sent them another mail asking if they were still intending to ship the beer. After all I have to coordinate this with the shipment of my trading partner as well. The tone seems to have changed quite a bit though, they just seem annoyed that I haven't just given up on this yet now...

Again, I know they don't owe me anything, and I never asked for anything either. It's the principle at stake here, I just don't like being bullshitted. If you make such a cool and gracious offer, then you should honor it as well, or you're just going to create a lot of disappointment.

 

I should probably note that they did actually, eventually, come through with a very generous box of four milkshake IPAs and a glass. So that's pretty cool.