Shangy's hopslam thread

Hi Mike! Yes, sorry about that (not stopping by), but especially since getting my most recent promotion/transfer to Morgantown, WV, (hard to say those two things in the same breath, but there it is), it's rare that I make it out to Media. It's a shame (and all the more so during hopslam season, when I always think of you and Quotations).

To respond to some of your comments...

"Suppose I am a 24 year old hopslam fan, and need to have more than a case. I ask my parents and my grandmother to get in a car with me so they can each buy a case. Now none of the three could even spell hopslam. Why would Nima care, well maybe one of his weekly customers happens to be traveling the first couple of days Hopslam is released. He arrives four days after Nima puts it on the floor and it is sold out. Why because a customer who may or may not be a regular, buys four cases. None left for the guy who keeps Nima open 52 weeks a year. Consequently, a bar owner who buys 300 dollars a week from Nima is alloted one case, but sends his wait staff up to Shangys and buys four additional cases to sell in his bar, thereby reducing the inventory for the Shangy walk up customer or account that supports Nima to a tune of 2000 dollars a week."

I hope this doesn't sound too unsympathetic or cruel, but IMHO, that's just life in the big city. Shangys sells beer to everyone, and although the scenario you describe is unfortunate, there's nothing illegal about it. Maybe Nima should set some hopslam aside for his best customers, if he wants to go to the hassle and bother (as apparently some stores do). Also, I think you should give us customers a bit more credit for having at least a little sense. There were a couple of places in Baltimore where I was droppnig a fair amount of dinero, but I didn't expect that was going to get me any special favors. Sure, the owner or cellar master might tell me in advance if there was something special coming up or coming in, but it was still my job to get my butt down there if I wanted to take advantage of it. If someone beat me too it, even if they didn't spend anything like the money I did, I figured that was just my tough luck.

In any event, I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting is an apt comparison or analogy. In the hypothetical posed by Nima, the only reason the 130 folks on the bus wouldn't get hopslam, was because they were on the bus. No one suggested that this was a busload of nuns from Akron. Who's to say the folks on this bus weren't all good customers who were droppoing $2000 a week at Shangys. As I understand the policy at Shangys, they would still need to each come in their car individually in order to buy hopslam. THAT's what I object to. The unfair unbehavior you're alluding to... at most the policy at Shangys would make it slightly more inconvenient to engage in that sort of behavior. Fact is, as a number of folks have pointed out on this thread, it's a considerable drive and hassle to get up to Shangys for a lot of us. So why not makes things a bit easier for all concerned by allowing folks to pool their resources and carpool on up there. Like I said, in the long run, wouldn't that leave them with more money to spend at Shangys? That's a good thing, isn't it?

"As for the bar owners and bottle shops complaining to you abuot their alotment, I think Nima painstakingly address that in his post."

Then I guess I'm too obtuse too understand him. Nima indicated that retail stores receive their hopslam allocation based on brand loyalty (which I agree is a fair and appropriate way to allocate product). To quote him exactly, "if you are a retailer and support Bell's brands of beer throughout the year, you will receive an allotment of Bell's Hopslam." Not to nitpick Mike, but that could be anything from a bottle to a cargo ship load. The folks I've spokenn to indicated that they felt they had not been adequately rewarded (to use Nima's expression) for being a huge Bell's customer. Of course that could well be just sour grapes, but I've heard the same story from several people, all of whom I thought (or had heard) were big buyers of craft beer and bells products. In any event, while he's not obligated to answer my question, I would be curious to know (still) how some of the larger and more renowned retail outlets in the area fare when it comes to getting hopslam, especialy when compared to what is sold out of Shangys retail. At the end of the day, I'm just curious about all this Mike... Hopslam has become a highly desirable, limited product, and so it's completely understandable that anyone in the supply chain is going to be unhappy and dissatisfied with their particular allocation. I get that, but damn their seems to be an awful lot finger pointing, name calling and downright nastines when it comes Shangys and some of their (alleged) business practices.

"As far as pricing policy. Nima doesn't need to disclose his pricing policy to anyone." Yep, I completely agree. That doesn't mean I can't ask though, does it? :-)

"If Nima is selling it at a demonstrably higher price than what Westy's is selling it to their on and off premise accounts, than maybe you have a argument."

If that didn't seem to be the case, based on what I've seen in SEPA and central PA., and if I hadn't been told that by several retail outlet owners and folks here on BA, then I would never have asked the question. Sure, there are a lot of other factors that go into the pricing of product, and certainly SEPA and Philly are expensive places to do business, but... I'm a consumer Mike, and I've checked the price of hopslam both in SEPA and central Pa. I'll simply say that the pricing I've seen at bottle shops, distributors and beer bars seems to be fairly consistent to what I've been told... that the retail price for hopslam in much of SEPA seems to suggest that the owner paid a price that is very close to what a consumer would have to pay for a case in the Shangys retail store, given the normal mark-up at the retail outlet (of course for all I know, that may in fact be just what a lot of these retail owners did... drive up to Shangys and bought additional cases there).

"are you hopslam posts cut and pasted from years before"

:-) With the purge of the old site threads, there's no way to do that (at least not that I know of). It's a shame, because it would really save a lot of time.

By the way Mike. I'm a bit concerned that you're starting to mellow a bit in your old age. The initial tone of that first paragraph, it almost sounded as if you were suggesting some sort of entitlement there. Sounded like you were suggesting that folks who have spent a certain amount of money at Shangys are "entitled" to a certain level of customer service that the rest of us peons shouldn't receive. Now you and I both know that it's only us liberals who believe in entitlements. A good republican like yourself, I'm just shaking my head that you would even suggest such a thing. Cheers! :-)

 

Thanks for the support, but I didn't get that impression. This is actually the way Mike and I always talk to one another. We don't always agree (hell, I'm a lib and he's a pretty conservative Republican), but I always pay attention to what he has to say. We've had this conversation (or similar ones) many times, and on some things we just agree to disagree. The point I always make is that I just don't understand why there is so much nasitness directed towards Shangys. So many folks (mostly on this site) have indicated they've been lied to, treated unfairly, etc., after a while it becomes very difficult to believe there isn't some underlying basis for it. So that's really the reason why I posted the questions I did.

Oh yeah... and no about of persuading by Mike is ever going to convince me that Shangys hopslam car pooling policy is just wrong! :-)

 

No you don't, but I appreciate the considerate post. :-)