When breweries cross the line... Wow!

Folks, in particular @invertalon. On behalf of Forest City Brewery, our sincere apologies. We were in a midst of some major issues with the quality of our beer, which you evaluated fairly with your honest opinion and you should not have been attacked like that. We were only open a few months and we thought we had a brewer capable of guiding us down the right path when it comes to sanitation practices, beer quality standards and attention to details. Way too thin skinned on that review. The partners and I put a great deal of effort, sweat, blood and money into bringing back this wonderful building and working with the City of Cleveland economic development offices, bringing some jobs to the city of Cleveland. We have remedied our issues and brought on a professional brewer from Southern Tier and another young guy with a degree in brewing. Everything has vastly improved, including the quality of our beers. We encourage you to try out the new suds and we would love to hear your opinion on the latest brews (only if they are good! just kidding, just kidding, seriously only kidding). Again, our sincere apologies. Cheers, Matt

 

I'd offer to comp him a beer He's been burned once, why should he risk being burned twice. If you have things turned around and are confident you'll hook him as a future customer with the improvements, bring him back on your own dime to get him in the door.

 

Things just got interesting!

 

Agreed! Especially with so many options around. Why bother coming back to potentially have more money and time wasted?

 

A shoulder rub would be nice, too

 

Ha ha, what a joke...apologize 3 months later for a pathetic childish tirade against a guy who was simply giving his honest opinion on beers.

If I was him I'd never set foot in there again.

 

How else should the brewery handle it?

 

Good question. Since they can't go back in time and not be jackasses, they're f*cked in my opinion.

Writing an apology 3 months after the fact and making excuses about what their problems were would definitely not get me back in there.

 

Wow...very interesting thread. I've had numerous breweries "cheers" my Unpattd ratings, but never had one criticize me for a bad review.

Looks like Forest City had some things to straighten out, both in the brewery and in public relations. Crazy.

 

My impression was that it was not someone associated with the brewery anymore that wrote that original tirade (but perhaps I'm wrong there). So, the current regime/management may not have even known about it until someone alerted them to it recently. It would seem like the right thing to do is to come on here and apologize, which they did. Maybe I'm giving them too much of the benefit of the doubt, but it certainly seems like a nicer way of dealing with things than to just say that anyone that make a mistake is f*cked. We've all been jackasses before, that's for sure.

I think that it would be right for them to at least offer a few beers on the house to him...not necessarily comp his whole bill or anything, but at least offer him an amount of beer that was poorly made from his initial review.

 

What's more childish. Writing a bad review or not accepting what seems to be a sincere apology? To forgive is divine.

 

Gotta say I wish other Cleveland breweries (cough, Portside, cough) would apologize for making shit beer when they change Brewers. Without admitting the issue like @mmapus did above, there's no reason to get back on the radar of people who have been burned. Personally, I will now venture back to Forest City and I hope things are truly on the upswing.

 

I think you are.

 

Or criticizing an apology or a reaction to an apology when you weren't even involved? (Not meant towards you but some of the other posts)

 

Personally I'd accept their challenge and go in and try their beers. This is the best type of feedback a brewery can receive...someone who previously disliked their beer coming in later to let them know if things have improved or not. The fact that the brewery is actively trying to make things right by apologizing and also ask for a second opinion shouldn't be frowned upon. It's only going to hurt the beer community to not actively work together on things like this moving forward.

 

I guess I agree with croush that this was a different dude and the original guy who replied from the brewery is gone.

But if the OP is happy with everything, I am too.