Wegman's to stop selling Unibroue

I don’t see how we can be expected to recover from this. Take my eyes but not my Wegmans Unibroue.

I’m kidding, obviously Unibroue makes some quality belgian style ales. Unfortunate that they aren’t selling enough.

 

Because of the three tiered system each Wegman's store has to obtain beer from their very local Wholesale Distributor. In my area each of the three Wegman's because of the counties they are located in obtain their beers from differing Wholesale Distributors. Does Wegmans truly have a corporate manner of purchasing beer for each of their supermarkets? Does this make sense to you?

Cheers!

 

In my opinion this situation can often come down to the ‘level of trust’ that exists between the non-local ‘corporate’ folks and the people ‘on the ground’ who order beer for a particular store. I got to know very well the beer store manager/beer buyer of a Whole Foods supermarket near me. This guy (Joe) was real knowledgeable about the local beer scene and the types of beer his local customers wanted. He did an excellent job managing the beer section and was very astute about which beers to order. Then about 3-4 years ago Whole Food was going through some sort of corporate ‘shake up’ with one aspect being consolidating both beer and wine purchasing at some (many?) of their stores. This was not a specific topic at my local Whole Foods store since they did not sell wine but there must have been some over-arching stuff going on as well. Joe basically related to me that he was soon going to be leaving with a vague statement of “my boss and I do not see eye to eye”. A few months later Joe left and he took the job of a sales rep for a local craft brewery. Unfortunately with his departure the operations at my local Whole Food stores beer section went downhill and I have not bought beer there in over 2 years.

I sure hope that my local Wegmans does not ‘degrade’ like what happened at my local Whole Foods store.

Cheers!

 

I very much miss the beer scene Joe created at that Whole Foods. It was a great crew and a great beer selection that I doubt will ever be replicated by another grocery store.

 

FWIW, Wegmans in NJ gets pretty fresh Kane consistently now so that's really awesome. I feel like their beer selection has gotten way better in the past 2-3 years.

 

As regards imported German beer those have decreased in availability at my local beer retailers over the past decade. There used to be more variety and quantity 10ish years ago but all too often they were old (e.g., > 6 months old). I personally refused to purchase those old beers and I suspect that other customers did as well. I would opine that the beer managers noted the decrease in purchasing and consequently ordered less and less of these German imports accordingly.

In contrast the variety and quantities of Belgian imported beers are just as good today as they were 10 years ago in my opinion.

Cheers!

 

Man, I love Wegmans as much as anyone.
But they continue to place Tsing-Tao next to the sushi and it drives me friggin' nuts.

They certainly have some flexibility with products, as you will see selected local brands across stores that are not placed in other stores. (They are a client of ours, I get to go to many Wegmans across Upstate and they are also really great people.)

Unibroue is just not as important as it was 10 or 15 years ago, and these stores only have some much square footage. Wegmans does a good job of sourcing local in many categories. Unibroue has to go.

Cheers

 

based Wegman's. The create your own six packs are hit or miss, but the guy at my local Wegman's used to tell me he would break open any case (as long as it was under a certain dollar amount) and let me grab one and he would fill the rest in the "create your own".
Unibroue is OK but not something I would look to buy anyway