When is it not appropriate to name a brewery?

It always bothers me when I see a thread started about some complaint about a specific brewery, store, etc. I don't feel that these threads should be a forum to discuss a complaint because the topic is usually very subjective about the taste of the beers, slow service, etc. A proper way to handle it is to write a review and express your dissatisfaction in the form of a numerical rating with appropriate specific comments. Other rating services such as Yelp might prefer that you use their site for this purpose rather than using BA.

 

Never. Coddling egos is one of the biggest problems with craft beer right now. Not every beer is good, not every brewery should keep being given chances. If there is a problem with the beer, brewery, services, whatever tell people.

Its the backlash from the craft is awesome because it's craft fanboys that even have people thinking twice about naming names. If you are going to relate an experience good or bad it's useless without referencing the place.

 

Not naming the brewery is appropriate when the topic is not strictly specific to that brewery and when naming the brewery will send the thread down a rabbit hole with arguments about how such a world-class humanitarian/dick the brewery owner is. Of course, people most of the time will guess the brewery anyway, and down the rabbit hole the discussion goes...

 

Generally I agree (like with the Hill Farmstead one that just got locked lol)

But I think there are cases where it's warranted. i.e. new brewery having teething issues in some respect or another, that they're trying to address, and someone posts a thread because whatever issue the brewery is having raises a larger point they want to discuss, without calling the brewery out

 

Disagree pretty strongly here. Breweries who really care would, I think, find feedback on BA more more helpful than Yelp, etc. It all depends on whether the brewer cares about the feedback and is willing to work with it constructively. See @ModernTimesJacob and @Sixpoint for good examples.

 

Sometimes it's a related issue that a certain beer gets you thinking about. For example; I started a thread a couple months ago about a beer from a brewery (that makes great beers, and I think very highly of) being overpriced. I didn't name the brewery, because I wanted to talk about what folks personal thoughts on value were. Within a few posts the predictable responses of "just tell us what beer it is bro, we'll tell you if it's worth it" started popping up. The whole idea was to not call out the beer or brewery, but find out something else. Some folks couldn't grasp the concept, and actually got angry that I wouldn't name the beer.

Sometimes, the conversation is about more than "that beer/bar/brewery sucks/is awesome", and in those circumstances, it's OK to not name names.

 

Isn't it more proper (and probably a lot more effective) if a complaint issue is addressed with the brewery personnel before leaving the place? It seems like the few complaint threads that are started here are going to stop a person from visiting a brewery because 99% of us who read that thread do not live close by anyway. Registering complaints here is merely blowing off some steam without great purpose.

 

If you had a bad experience due to one particular bartender, waitress, waiter or any other individual in their employ, than perhaps lay off the brewery on the post and just blow some steam off about the interaction with unnamed brewery while emailing the brewery to let them know. If the bad customer service in not isolated to one instance (from what I hear, FFF has had some stellar interaction) or if you receive no reply (or worse, a snarky reply) than maybe the community in general needs to have the brewery outed. If it's a quality control issue, I'd say create a consumer concern style thread but don't flame them. Just pose the question "Has anyone else had an issue with "X" beer?" just to create awareness while also emailing the brewery to give them an opportunity to make right or at least explain.

While this isn't all inclusive to every situation, they are the ones I can most easily relate to since I don't do releases.

 

It's always appropriate. If you had a bad meal at a restaurant or something you didn't like, I'm hoping you would share your opinion with others about that restaurant. That's what makes companies strive to be better.