Phase Three Brewing (2024)

I’m in Oak Park, come find me on a nice day for a porch pour or a cold day for a bonfire pour.

 

Stopped by Elmherst location to pick up Eunoia 19 bottles (Ambassador member)… they’re out. ‘In maybe a week’ was the estimate on when they’re going to re-up for pick-ups. Disappointing.

 

Wow, hope they are offering some compensation to someone like you, who they just left in the lurch. Like a free pour of the draft at a minimum.

 

It was definitely a bummer to show up during pick-up window and not have the bottles available, but I didn't make a big deal. Sucks for me because I live in Northbrook and I usually come down to Elmherst only really to pick up Phase 3 bottles. The idea of going down there and losing another hour commuting isn't appealing. I guess the lesson for me to learn is, next time I decide to go I'll call ahead to confirm they have bottles.

 

You have much more patience than someone like myself. I'd say f that noise and ask to make it up. Totally inexcusable to not have on hand. Maybe they need to worry a little less about throwing parties with Santa Claus for little kids and accommodate members who pay a decent chunk of money upfront for some brown sugar water.

 

I hope you emailed them about what happened. They make a big deal about ordering from the right location so they ensure they have the right amount of bottles allocated at each location that it surprises me this happened. But def email them as they are usually quick to respond.

 

I did e-mail them, asking for clarification on availability and how I can avoid this in the future.

Believe me, I was taken aback when they told me they didn't have any. I thought I misheard what the employee said, so I had my Oznr QR code out and ready and asked again for my bottles to pick up. And she then more clearly said, they don't have any right now.

 

That is messed up and unacceptable. Sucks you have to deal with their incompetence.

 

This is definitely inexcusable - they can't mess up something like this.

That said...

This has nothing to do with former, but at least you developed a great example of a strawman argument!

 

Following up on this — did they offer anything for the inconvenience?

 

Easter Bunny party?

 

I just looked this up on Urban Dictionary, and you, sir, should be banned from the internet.

 

I did e-mail the second time to both Alex@phasethreebrewing and lauren@phasethreebrewing, 2 days after the initial e-mail to [email protected] went unanswered, and I got the following response:

Apologies on the delay - Alex is no longer with the company, and was not involved in anything Ambassador related. As outlined in the Ambassador guidelines, please use [email protected] for all Ambassador-related inquiries - this is your direct line for all help for your membership.

Please accept my and our apologies on the Eunoa 19 issue. We're making sure inventory miscommunication doesn't happen again. They have already been and will remain stocked for the remainder of the pick up window.

Eunoia 19 pickups do extend through January 5th, but because of this, this email serves as an automatic extension for you until Sunday, January 12th. Please show your bartender this email + your ID and they can help.

Thank you, and my apologies again.

It appears that the offer was for an extra week to pick up my bottles.

 

I understand that it is difficult to always run a smooth ship for a business so always try to give a bit of grace, but this is very disappointing. Sometimes people miss the mark initially, but then it's corrected when the appropriate people are involved. That simply didn't happen here and they've earned any ill will that comes their way on this one. Sorry for the incredibly inappropriate response @eppie82

 

Gross. This is so disappointing I’m actually upset they already have my money for next year. If it were me, I’d tell Lauren thanks but that’s not sufficient compensation for my wasted gas and time value of traveling there for nothing. Particularly, as others have mentioned, they are not flexible about which location you can pickup at if you bought for the other location, so what’s the point of their hard line stance if they can’t even keep the stock they need ready. Also, they’ll extend pickups like that all the time so it’s not something special (and 7 days isn’t particularly generous). Super disappointing right before the holidays that they aren’t trying to go the extra mile.

 

Remember when you’d pick up beers at Pipeworks dojo and they’d automatically just throw in extra beer or some merch? Or rev tossing in lighter beers to try with their big stouts?

Those gestures go a long way, and those guys didn’t do anything wrong! Hard to believe they didn’t just respond with “ugh, that should not have happened. When you come back in to pick it up, please remind us, and we’ll take care of you. I hope you like Easter Bunny Parties. ”

 

In re-reading my statement I want to clarify that I meant to say that I always try to give grace and that @eppie82 did here as well. My wording was a little poor and don't want people to think that I was claiming that @eppie82 didn't provide grace in this scenario (which he most certainly did).

 

I know they likely don't care... but at some point when the hype dies and they need members maybe they will... this is why I won't consider a membership here. This seems like one of the least flexible membership with regards to pickup timelines and locations. I don't live in the state and I don't have time to drive there once a month or whatever. I saw they added ability to use proxies for membership at least this year, but that just adds up over time. Even if proxies are kind and generous with their time, I still feel the need to compensate in some manner for their efforts. That aside, even the member beer reviews are somewhat hit or miss and a lot of folks complain about no barrel/too sweet. I do enjoy their beers and unfortunately, most of their beers don't make it to public but end of the day, they aren't that hard to trade for anymore if I really want something and I can usually lineup IP deals when I'm in town at my convenience. Even with Arabesque and Minutiae, I don't enter the lotteries because there has been no proxies and tight pick up windows. For now they can get by with it, but at some point the winds of change will hit them. For me, I'll just trade for it because that's the easiest path.

 

It seems like every year there are a dozen new breweries making great barrel aged beer and when the beer is universally good I'm more inclined to just spend my money on places that have excellent customer service and it's that much easier to ignore places that have terrible customer service. I'm sure Minutiae is great (or at least I hope so because I finally got myself a bottle this year) but if I'm deciding between two highly regarded similar priced beers something like this whole incident makes that decision making process a lot easier.

 

Their customer service sucks. Lauren always pulls that shit about "Ambassador guidelines" instead of just responding in a normal way. What a horrible email that takes no accountability for their fuck up, no reason as to why bottles were not available and then no attempt to make it right. I mean, WTF is "inventory miscommunication"? You're a member, they should have had your bottles available during the pickup window.