Stone Enjoy By 7-4-19

I'm taking this out of context before any of you savages do

 

This would seem to indicate that the distributors in your area do not remove old stock. Removing a 'handful' of old beers but leasing a "sea" behind does not count as far as I am concerned.

If the next time I see that Stone removed the old beer that I specifically reported but left behind all of the other old Stone brands I personally am not going to praise them for their minuscule effort here. @drtth @AZBeerDude72

Cheers!

 

If places aren’t removing beer that literally says ENJOY BY ____, I don’t dare wonder how their other stock is maintained. I wouldn’t step foot in there period.

 

I I followed your edict here I would never step into any of my local beer retailers.

Cheers!

 

Let me know if they do. I was amazed how fast they removed the items I reported. Its the only reason I mentioned it was that they actually did. Curious if this holds true still.
Cheers

 

Did you check to see if they removed other old Stone brands as well?

Cheers!

 

If the Enjoy By does get pulled and you do find more out of code beers you can have a bit of fun, while sending Stone a message about their rep. Report just one more of the other out of code beers. Wait a while. Then report another of the out of code beers. And so on. After that happens a enough times there's no way the Rep can say to Stone, "Oh, that was an oversight or a clerical error." (Can be amazing how some folks shape up when they have to deal with lots of things separately that they could have handled all together at one time/trip.)

 

Or I can just refuse to ever purchase Stone beer ever again?

I enjoy the craft beer 'hobby' but...

Cheers!

 

I did not check everything but the Stone beers I looked at were in code after that visit. I cannot say for sure every Stone was in code but the ones I viewed were. I would hope if they sent someone or called the store they checked everything, would make sense least to me.

 

I love my Stone rep and I know for a fact (have done ride alongs with him) that each rep covers a pretty big territory and they are very responsive when they get tipped on old beer. The retailers have a bigger role to play imo.. If you care about your store and are taking regular inventory, this won't happen.

The whole "doing his job for him" bit is a hot take. The rep probably has over 100 accounts. Hard to fix a problem when you don't know it exists!

 

I paid $15.50 for a six pack here in PA whereas previously going price was about $18.

Good on Stone.

 

Sure, you could do that, but do you really think that would ever be noticed by anyone in the world but you and your wife? I’m pretty sure neither Stone nor the Sales Rep would even notice you were gone.

 

Like all things, some are better than others. Most of the time, you scan which brands are old and can immediately tell which distributors pick up their old beer and which ones don’t. Some reps are hesitant to have product picked up because they're worried it will serve as a red flag to their ASM or RSM that they are overselling to accounts just to hit numbers. I worked for several years with one of the biggest distributors in the state and it was a seesaw regarding their stance on OOC beer. One week the mission statement was to clean up your market, but the next week the managers are down your throat saying you’re having too much picked up.

Either way, it sucks and I think we can agree that old beer in the market does nothing positive for any brand.

 

Amen!

Cheers!

 

Any business that does not "notice" loss of customers is risking going out of business.

The craft beer distributing business is hyper-competitive today.

Cheers!

 

Stone's not taking any chances with this one. It's being marketed as a Hazy, Unfiltered, Double Dry Hopped, West Coast, New England style, dry & crisp yet juicy, citrus, papaya and mango forward, crisp Imperial IPA which is both dank and resinous but with low bitterness and a pillowy mouthfeel. And unlike previous Enjoy by's this one can be enjoyed before or after the best by date on the package.

 

That's completely true, but since you personally are not "lots of customers" your impact would still go unnoticed, especially if "lots of customers" continue to buy the out of code beer anyway.

 

And that is indeed an "if" in today's craft beer market.

It would not be wise for any distributing craft brewery to depend on this with the fact there will be 8,000+ craft breweries by the end of 2019.

Cheers!

 

Not such as big an "if" as you seem to think. Given what you report seeing and what I'm seeing. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen at least some out of code beer in retail locations that are still doing lots of business. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard you comment about seeing out of code beer or not being able to find a retailer that didn't have out of code beer. A retailer doesn't stay in business without sales.

 

Username checks out.

I kid, I kid. It’s not exactly one to finish in one go (unless it’s the only one of the night). I also imagine at many people’s pace, it would probably get pretty warm near the end. Cause I mean..who wants to stick an open can back in the fridge for later?