Issues with Tavour

It may be a small commitment, but allowing someone to add one more email to your inbox--even of items you potentially want to see--is a commitment.

And it sorta begs the question: if there is no commitment, then why does Tavour want to force people to provide their email addresses to simply look at their stock?

And I think @gibgink has discovered the answer:

That is just a step below* full-on spam behavior and it's shady as fuck. This alone is enough reason to not sign up.

*they may not be selling the emails to a rando third party to spam you, but I imagine they are getting some kind of quid pro quo from the companies they feel you will "find of interest".

 

Not really. I have all my emails synced to my phone and they go to appropriate folders. My "spam" email is more of an email for Amazon, online orders, etc. Doesn't add much time to my day to delete 90% of the 30 some odd emails I receive in it per day and look at the 10% relevant items. My choice and I understand why others might not want to do it, but it seems people make a bigger deal of signing up for this kind of stuff than they need to.

 

Keep in mind you are in the only state east of the Mississippi that they ship to. I just signed up and found out they currently only ship to:AZ, CA, CO, NM, OH, OR and WA.

 

I stopped buying from that fine establishment and unsubscribed from their email list after learning about that and other shenanigans they pull.

 

totally agree

 

This is Philip one of the founders of Tavour.


Unfortunately when most people think of beer + internet – most people imagine stale product bought at a discount, or a membership club where you hope and pray each month. I think this creates confirmation bias that we have all been trained to expect. So when a customer sees 2014 on a bottle, like it happened at the start of this thread, I understand understand the false reaction.


We have never purchased stale or remnant beer. The beer we offer is delivered from the brewery in typically less than 30 days of being bottled. Once we accept the beer it remains in cold storage in our warehouse until it is put on a truck for delivery to you. We give customers the ability to advance their ship date at no extra charge if they want to receive their box sooner. Given the complexity of moving product to where our customers are this is not cheap or easy but we know it is the right thing to do for both for our brewery partners and our beer loving customers. If you ever get a product from us that you feel is not fresh please contact us.

Thank you to our customers who took the time to share their experience. We are a part of the craft beer community and we really do care about our brewery partners and our end customers. Our team is at GABF this week so connect with us if you want to discuss further or just hang out.

 

Not defending their email requirements, but I will say that there isn't any beer in stock to view. That's not how Tavour works (at least in how they represent it to consumers). They send out an email once or twice a day with one or two beers that they are selling. It's kind of like the crackhead that comes into the barbershop everyday with something different, if it's something you want, maybe you buy it, if not, you say no.

 

I am a fan of Tavour, I have been a customer for a few months and have had nothing but good experiences. My main enjoyment of the company, is that they offer me a selection of beer that for the most part I have never heard of, and would likely never think about if they didn't bring it to my attention. Most of the beers available seem like they are coming from smaller breweries, and I am sure these breweries appreciate that there product is now offered to a much larger market. Hands down, not all of the beers I have purchased from Tavour have blown me away, but I have also yet to be dissatisfied. A lot of beers offered seem like they are very fresh or brand new, as when I try to do research on the specific beers here on Beer Advocate or Untappd, there are always very few check-ins or no check-ins at all. Sometimes that's actually nice as I can form my own opinion on that beer with an unbiased opinion from other check-ins.

Keep up the good work Tavour!

 

Amen. To all of this. Especially that last bit. By the way, I disagree with you on that Yirge beer, I enjoyed it.

 

FWIW, I haven't seen an increase in spam since I signed up. Like I said above, I'm yet to make my own order, but I've had friends add bottles to their orders for me. Not had any issues with the beer. YMMV.

 

I'm with the ones that don't like the fact that you need to "join" first to get an idea of what its like. That's a bad business practice often associated with spam and scam. I did "join" for 10 minutes after receiving an offer from UT but quickly changed all my info to nonsense after seeing the poor layout, interface, and system that they operate. I'm glad to see other BAs being happy with it and all that but I'll pass for now. To me it doesn't seem like a "company" I'd trust with my personal info and $.

 

Well done @Philip-Tavour. Glad to see you show up in this thread and bring some facts to the discussion.

The email thing is not a big deal. I've never received anything except beer mails from them. While I don't always order, I enjoy Philip (and on occassion a bold intern's) emails. So eloquent with the beer descriptions. BA's, don't sit there and tell me you wouldn't enjoy this popping into your inbox on the regular:

In this year’s 3-Way, Fort George teams up with pFriem and Georgetown to deliver sledgehammers full of hoppy flavor in a tight, sessionable, 5.7% ABV IPA. These collaborators are widely recognized for their crushable on-tap hits. Together this IPA superteam produces no hubris, no slack, and no fluff - their collective talent creates a lean-malted, hop-filled joyride with unique hop character.

3-Way gives off hints of the tropics with the assistance of one of the most recent additions to the hop world - Equinox. Papayas intermingle with lemons to create unusual exoticism. Sipping is more savory than fruity with elements of green peppers working with spruce and black pepper to create a original zesty kick of refreshment. With minimal malts, 3-Way finishes quenching, hoppy bitter, and dry.

Overall, I'd consider this thread some good promotion of Tavour. Cheers!

 

Boy, talk about an asteism.

 

It's not meant to be. I'd say I have asked for about 25% of the offerings in the daily e-mails I get from Tavour. I pushed my first shipment back to fill the box more in order to spread the shipping out. The beer of the month clubs I've received as gifts from family members were "OK", but I'd say I enjoyed ~10% of the beers in those. One has no commitment, and you buy what sounds interesting - the other, "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit".

The best part about it is you don't have to deal with any annoying bottle shop employees!

 

@MastaaaGrillaaa - Thanks for acknowledging that it was a misunderstanding and that the beer we delivered was fresh. Thank you for taking the time to set the record straight. We benefited from the discussion and we are now mentioning bottle dates in our email offers for IPA’s to prevent the misunderstanding in the future.

We have never sold any email addresses or other personal information to other companies, nor plan to in the future. Our privacy policy has been updated to allay any concerns about selling information. We didn’t realize there was concern about this.

Thanks to the many others who spoke about their experience with Tavour. We listen to the community and will continue to work hard to ensure everyone gets to enjoy awesome craft beers.

PS: wish we could change the title of this thread – can anyone make that happen?

 

Perhaps "WARNING" can be removed? @F2brewers

 

@Philip-Tavour nice job putting concerns to rest - keep up the good work!

 

Done.

And dusted.

 

I think it's fantastic that Tavour vouches for the freshness of their beer and that it has been vetted in multiple ways. So at the very least, the OP's original concern has been satisfied and then some.

But I still, personally, am not a fan of the idea that Tavour has the right to give one's email address out to third parties, and any discussion of that potential issue was conspicuously absent from the owner's participation in this thread. Of course, every customer's level of comfort with such things is different, and I'll be the first to admit that I have zero evidence to show that Tavour is doing anything unsavory with those email addresses. It's just something that seemed a bit sketchy to me, as I have a hard time imagining the purpose of such a disclaimer if there is no intent to provide users' email addresses to other third parties.

But hey, I'm pretty damn far from all-knowing, and people have every right to make their own informed decisions about the business model. I probably wouldn't sign up even if Michigan was a state to which Tavour shipped because I'm personally not comfortable with that element.

I will say this: at the very least, Tavour is a unique take on the online shopping approach to buying beer. It's not quite a standard online store, and it's not a traditional beer-of-the-month club. If nothing else, they may have discovered a gap in the market for craft beer.