Toppling Goliath Releases and Updates

My friend & I are not day drinkers, so we got our session 4 bottles & left to check into our hotel. Stopped by Pulpit around 5pm (underwhelmed by the IPA's), Rubaiyat around 6:30 (Assassin on draft?!) and got back to Toppling Goliath around 8pm.

It was a ghost town. We were getting Mornin' Delight pours with no line at all until close at 11pm.

Plus: Mabe's delivered pizza basically to our table!

By waiting out the Death Valley day drinking, we wound up having a low-key, awesome time in Decorah.

10/10 will return.

 

Kinda like Nick Murphy, huh? He was there from the beginning and recently left TG. Chad was another former employee who was there from the beginning that left (though a while ago) and we all know Mike Saboe left (and was swayed to come back). Clark must just be an awful person to work for (or so I've heard).

 

I know a ton of former TG employees (it's almost impossible not to if you spend much time around the Decorah beer scene), and almost every single one has left on bad terms either quitting or fired out of the blue. At first I just assumed that maybe they were individual issues with the employees, but I've just seen it happen way too many times over the past 6-7 years. The trend clearly falls on TG. The whole issue with Chris Flenker is yet another example of how they (Clark) handle themselves. From what I can tell Clark is great to his customers and terrible to his employees.

But, we wouldn't have Pulpit without TG's internal dysfunction, so it isn't all bad I guess.

 

Without getting into any specifics, can you explain what this means?

1. Quitting or Fired out of the blue is bizarre.
2. Happening many times is more bizarre.

Not saying an employer can't be terrible, he truly can, but if this is going to be brought up, it'd be great to have some idea of what's going on. The way this is phrased almost makes it seem like a spoof off Drew Carey, where they spin a wheel to pick whose fired that day.

 

I've known quite a few former TG employees. Several of them were fired without (their claim) prior corrective activity or warning. Several of them quit after heated exchanges with Clark for a myriad of reasons that I'm not just going to post so as not to slander anybody. Some of them were fired as a result of a relationship that deteriorated over time. I've heard a litany of horror stories about Clark, but again, I'm not going to lay it out in gory detail because I can't verify the veracity of the claims. The thing is, when I hear similar things over and over from numerous people that I've found to be credible folks, I start to make conclusions.

The turnover rate, especially in the non-server positions is extremely high. Mike Saboe has left multiple times. This isn't normal, and it seems to add up to Clark being difficult to work for, and extremely volatile. This also seems consistent with the way TG goes about the rest of their business.

 

That's fair. No need to get into a "He-Said-She-Said" debate. If you feel like you could be however abreviated, I'd still support some transparency that isn't akin to airing dirty laundry. Like "Disagreement over "on Call" time," or "Disagreement over expected wage increases," or anything else similarly vague, but cutting to the point.

Either way, from your elaboration it does not sound at all like your first message, that these were just spontaneous. Met lots and lots of people who claim "they did nothing wrong" when in fact they are at least partially to blame. No one gets fired for doing the "right" thing all the time.

Fired employees and employees ready to quit (or those that have already given their resignation) are poisonous. That's why so many employers tell people to go home when they given their two-weeks notice. Rarely are these people angels who are the victim of wanton rage and tyranny by the management.

 

Agreed 100%, which is why I was initially skeptical. But the numbers started adding up. What I've gathered is that when people are under performing, or doing something wrong at TG, there's little to no feedback about what they're doing. Lots of assumption and passive-aggressive behavior. I've heard this same message from different people working in different roles. It does not have a good internal culture. I've also heard of a long time employee leaving because people were being hired under them at higher salaries, and they were refused a raise by management. If Murph has left, that's pretty damning. That guy was there from the get-go.

 

To add onto @DriftlessFarmer point,

Wage's were one of the big reason for a lot of the departures. Saboe was extremely under paid for his early roles, and to my knowledge was only convinced to come back with a small ownership stake. These wages haven't really changed either (although they were suppose to), even with the brewery growing and still charging $50 per bottle for a un-barrel aged stout.

But to be honest upper management is the problem. Clark comes from a whole different type of business originally before starting TG, and not to mention being in the military, that sets up a lot of the decision making as top down "MY WAY OR GET THE F OUT" . This is what happened with the Brewhub expansion, Mike didn't want it to happened, and Clark didn't care and nearly lost his head brewer.

The bottom line is that Clark is hard to deal with sometimes, especially if he's paying your salary. Not sure how much more I can say without either restating what has already been said hundreds of times in this forum or getting to far into specifics.

This is the reason why TG is such a weird beast. I would normally never give my money to a company who I know treats their employees like this. But Mike has helped them create some of the best brews in the world, and I like him as a person so it's a catch 22.

Really just wish Mike would of left permanently and started his own brewery, than we could see how long TG would last without him.

 

Indeed, Murph was their original brew master...

In case you guys want a trip down memory lane...

 

Greatly appreciated. I think that was everything I (personally) was looking for.

 

For the record - despite having visited this particular thread for approx. the last year, and I think read quite a bit from the year or two prior, I did not garner much about "everything that has been discussed," other than people's distaste. Most of what is discussed is TGs business practices in terms of sales, or lotteries, etc. Very little has been said (that I have read) about anything internal. So, again, I appreciate the insight.

 

Maybe all this adds up to why they can't even brew their main beer with consistency...

 

FIFY.

Anyway, what has been described is much of what can happen at any small business where the management is not a professional manager, or at least trying to learn to be one.

Such things as lack of performance feedback is a classic case. Medium to large corporations have built-in HR practices that are more-or-less forced upon the managers to carry out, performance reviews being one of them, and the best managed of these enforce actual performance reviews, not just happy talk. In sympathy with TG, this is a hard thing to do for most people.

Second, a well managed company (small or large) will pay attention to competitive employee compensation, will set up at least informal pay scales based on the job, and will pay attention to salary compression (e.g. younger, lower level employees being paid nearly at -- or worse, exceeding - the salaries of more experienced or higher level employees). Again, this does not come naturally, but with professional management training.

Actually firing under-performers is also a hard thing to do, so giving Clark a bit of the benefit of the doubt here, at least he seems to be doing that. Many small businesses tend to be managed on friendship and loyalty, which can also lead to internal rot.

If Clark is not conducting regular performance reviews, even people who are fired for cause will feel like it "came out of the blue."

Combine that with a command and control individual at the top, and things can become very stressful, leading some people to leave just to get away from it all.

All of this is just my musing. I has nothing whatsoever to do with any personal knowledge of the situation (since I have none).

 

I was at a time having direct discussions with Clark as a potential hire to manage their taproom and I am extremely thankful I didn't choose to go that route after reading what's recently been posted and based on my own previous interactions.

 

Considering a visit to the TG Taproom - do they have bottles for onsite consumption of any of their stouts? Is their taplist online comprehensive, or could they have others not listed? Thanks!

 

Their online list is comprehensive. I have not been there when they had on site bottles which is usually during events. You may get lucky but I wouldn't bank on it.

 

Finally putting to rest the idea that Morning Delight isn't the base beer for KBBS.....

 

Wondering why TG is acting like this is news? This has been well known for a long time, even to the point of them bringing it up in their tours.

To my knowledge TG only brews 3 stouts ( including rover), yet releases many variants... 1 BA porter is also in that mix.

 

The “news” is KBBS + MD. But yea, Clark’s snarky social media trivia is tiring.

 

Good for him, either way he's only encouraged by all the suckups commenting on the TG twitter feed. He is able to hype TG because beer nerds like us lap it all up like we would a pour of KBBS.

Also, to keep it relevant, I distinctly remember them specifically saying that the base imperial stout that becomes KBBS is different than the one that becomes MD. But that was years ago.