The Bruery Announcements/Allocations

Just texted tarah, the assistant RS coordinator, she said you can also email [email protected] or [email protected] if that's any more convenient :/

 

I'll just pile on here - I'm also getting the "no shipping option available" message despite trying to change my address. This happened over the weekend and has now caused me to miss the window for regular Sour in the Rye (yeah, I procrastinated, but I didn't expect to have to wrestle with a glitchy website). I've been emailing with Matt to try to resolve it, however it just escalated a bit - I tried to order GB and SitR w/ Peaches and the whole website crashed on me. Gave me some "500" error, and I'm unable to log back in now. Not Matt's fault of course, and he has been nothing if not helpful. The website issues are just rather frustrating.

I agree with Beerandraider - I'd hoped for something a little better when putting up the extra money...

 

I just spoke to Matt at the Bruery and he said they're speaking to the website developer right now. Hopefully the issue will resolve soon.

 

That's good to hear. I should also note that between the time I posted my first message and now, Matt was able to get my account back up and running and I was able to order GB and SitR w/ Peaches (this needs an acronym, stat).

 

I'm in HS and haven't received any emails (about these allocations, the initiation party, etc.).

 

They got back to me very quicklky on this. I think they might have some issues with their mail server. He tried to add my e-mail address and apparently got some error message saying that my e-mail address has chosen to not subscribe to their e-mail list, which makes no sense (same one that worked fine in 2012). For what it's worth, it is a hotmail address.

I sent him another e-mail address to try.

You may want to get in touch with them.

 

For people wondering about shipping, I played around with it a bit this morning, and came to these conclusions:

1) It increases monotonically, but not linearly. That said, the deviations from linearity are minor. So adding more bottles is always cheaper, although the exact amount cheaper varies.

2) It doesn't matter what the bottles are. 12 bottles of one beer is the same as 1 bottle of twelve different beers.

I'm wondering if they'll throw the two included bottles in, that was nonobvious to me. Also wondering if they'll hold them and ship in larger batches. I asked Jamie but it seems like there are fires to put out.

 

I am also confused, where are the Hoarders bottles of barrel aged Gunga Galunga?

 

I really hope that GB is an option for Reserve Society. They mentioned it a few times when promoting RS sales on Facebook:

The Bruery Reserve Society
December 31, 2012
At 5pm today we will cut off sales for the 2013 Reserve Society. Start your year off with a bang and make sure you get your hands on beers like Black Tuesday, Chocolate Rain, Griffon Bruxellois and at least a half dozen other exclusive Society beers!

http://society.thebruery.com/

 

The Dali Lama is barrel aging them at home.

 

I can't even login, and a new password is not being sent to my email. Grrrhh

 

Me too. My parents own a Brussels Griffon (or Griffon Bruxellois, whatever you want to call it) and I thought it would be awesome to get some of that beer. It was probably the main reason I joined RS.

 

Hey guys!

Sorry, I haven't logged in at all today to check what the interwebz are saying. Obviously, I should've checked in here long ago. I'd like to go through a list of points I've seen brought up here to shed some light on certain issues, answer questions, and hopefully ease some tension.

Lack of a pick-up option:
If you aren't seeing a pick-up option that is most likely one of 2 issues
1) the zip code needs to be exactly 5 digits. I just learned this morning that Golden State Overnight doesn't recognize the longer #####-#### format, so those will pop up as invalid shipping addresses.
2) There needs to be a CA address as your shipping address. This is another issue related to the fact that we use GSO to ship through. Even if you want to pick-up, it still needs a valid CA address, even though it won't be using that address for anything.

Griffon Bruxellois
Originally, we had intended to sell GB to RS for last year. We let it sit longer than planned to allow the yeast in the bottles to do it's work and carb up a little more. The slight growth of members from year to year in the RS put us just below the 1 bottle limit that we had planned on. We ended up deciding to allow hoarders first crack at it. We are planning on a very limited RS release for this beer next week, but please be advised there will not be enough to go around. My apologies to those who were expecting this beer to be easily attainable for all in the RS.

Peach SITR
Yes, this is the "Peach Sour Blend" mentioned in the Hoarders included releases. All HS members are receiving 2 bottles included in their membership, and since we yielded more of the beer than originally expected, we figured HS members would appreciate the opportunity to purchase more. (I think it's pretty damn delicious)

RS Staff
Jamie now has 2 assistants in fulfilling RS duties, and the obligation of packaging orders (for pick-up and shipping) has been handed off to the Warehouse staff. The idea is that this will allow more time for focused customer service in person in the Tasting Room as well as over the phone/email/etc. I admit that in the last year there have been times when her workload has been too great to get to everything possible (even with the Tasting Room GM and myself filling in occasionally), and I really think this year will be better now that there is at least one RS staff member in the tasting room at all times.

Phones
We also just switched over to a new VOip phone system. Again, my apologies if your phone calls have gone unanswered. I know Jamie has been taking calls left and right today over there, so maybe overall traffic has been part of the issue. If you are having trouble getting a hold of anyone, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]

Not Receiving Emails
If you are not receiving emails from the Website (order confirmations) please let me know. I have already forwarded this question to our web developer as this is not something I was able to figure out, but I am still waiting on a resolution. If you are not receiving the allocation-announcement emails, please also specify that problem and email me. [email protected]

Once again, I apologize for any possible frustration out there arising the last month of Society activity. We feel that these changes we've implemented will smooth over alot of the operational issues we've experienced in the last 3 years of the RS. Thank you for being as patient, communicative and understanding as you all have been so far! I humbly ask to bear with us a little longer as we try to iron out any more of these kinks, so we can all move forward with a fun beer-filled 2013!

-Matt

 

Thanks for clearing the air and everything, but the fact that you guys would dangle this beer to prospective RS customers to get them to join, but then not follow through on that promise because you promised doubled allocations for those who spend $700 instead of $300 on their memberships (in addition to perhaps letting too many join the RS) indicates extremely poor product planning and an emphasis on maximizing your revenue at the expense of your customers.

If RS members are going to be receiving smaller allocations this year than in previous years all so you could double down on those willing to pay $700 and add more RS members than you can support with your current production capacity, your business is getting a little skewed away from being fair to the customers that practically tithe to support your brewery. Hopefully I’m wrong and allocations stay on par with last year, but this GB snafu does not bode well for the future of RS.

Not to mention that it sounds like many beers that used to go to RS members at the initiation party are going to be cordoned off to the manacle crowd.

Remember that the HS was billed as an enhanced membership, not as a membership that dilutes the value of an RS membership. And it was never said that RS members would be losing benefits as a result of the HS.

 

I resent your implication that those of us in the HS are slaves.

 

The tears of the RS taste sweet!

The HS was not billed as an enhanced membership, otherwise I would have just bought two RS memberships.

 

Fair enough - I suppose some small portion of your wages remain in your pocket after all is said and done.

 

couldnt care less about tasters at a party im not even going to be at, but advertising a product as being part of a package on several occasions, then not providing said product is pretty poor

 

The hoarder's invitation was billed specifically as an opportunity to gain access to "new and interesting beers" that were being brewed for hoarders - not as an opportunity to divert beers originally intended for RS members into the mouths of those twice as rich (or foolish depending on one's view of the wisdom in spending this kind of money on destroying your liver).

Granted, you were promised the ability to buy twice as many beers as RS members, but there was never any mention that RS members would be allocated fewer beers to facilitate the gluttony of the beer bourgeois.

 

Ahh yess the GB right next to the Dirty Beever juice weekend....


However I will be greatly upset (Just like the RS members) if allocations are reduced by half on limited release stuff. Luckly the value of the beers included with the package nearly makes up for the cost of the package, unlike some other brewery's club