Brewer websites unresponsive emails

I reached out to 3 Floyds today via email with a very specific question and had an answer within an hour or so. Not that I needed another reason to continue to drink their beers, but this experience was impressive.

 

Ifts quicker to go through your local rep than email them directly sometimes. Other times the brewer is responsive. Depends on the brewer. Twitter is the fastest.

 

I've had quick responses from Great Divide, Boulder Beer, and Lazy Magnolia using facebook. Boulder even sent me a free t-shirt after I informed them that I bought a sampler box that was way past it's expiration date.

 

I emailed Deschute's a few months back about a general distribution question and even highlighted a thread on BA. they not only responded to me pretty quickly but they also replied to the thread.

 

Sent a question to Kuhnhenn over the weekend and haven't heard back. It's not a major deal but sometimes it's nice to even get a canned response haha.

 

Another one for Sierra Nevada - sent them an email with some questions and they responded back within a few hours. Very nice.
I suppose if you don't get a response back you can either resend it or try another option (facebook, twitter, to the local rep, etc).

 

Follow up: Left Hand contacted me on facebook and has answered my questions and even went above and beyond to find answers to my questions. Thank you Left Hand

 

Me too but I got no response

 

Sent an email to Evan at Southampton letting him know that my bottle of Uberliner exploded (well, the bottom blew out) in my cellar. He responded within 48 hours and offered to check their library to see if he can replace it, even though my only intention was to inform them in case others are having the same issue. Incidentally, he hadn't heard of this from anyone else. Great customer service.

 

I emailed Stone a couple weeks ago inquiring when IRS was first bottled and as of yet, no response.

 

I believe it just like everything else in life , you have people that care & people that don't . Then again there's the people that don't have a clue. Also brewery's get corporate & then you get homogenized answers scripted by lawyers or no answer at all.
It's funny how they can walk around the questions. My favorite question as of late is the best by date.I ask how the bottle date relates to the best by date , then give an example such as best by 6/1/12 =a bottle date of 1/1/12= 6 mos bottle date.
Sort of believe their marketing dept. Doesn't like this question

This is what I have found

 

I had a small issue with an Allagash beer so I emailed them and they couldn't have handled it better. Quick response and apology and even sent me a pair of glasses and a t-shirt. For this reason (aside from the fact that they make excellent beer) I will always be a huge Allagash fan.

 

I've never contacted a brewery directly about an issue (never felt the need). But I've seen several brewery representatives respond to questions/issues right here on BeerAdvocate forums. From memory I've seen forum responses Sierra Nevada (sierranevadabill), Larry Bell of Bells, Otter Creek/Wolavers, Jolly Pumpkin, Weyerbacher, and others that I'm forgetting now. Very rarely Greg Koch of Stone and Sam Calagione of DFH will post here, but it's typically an informative post, not a "customer service" response.

 

I've only emailed one brewery, Cantillon, and I received a friendly response within the hour.

 

I just sent Deschutes an email because I found bottles of their Cascade Ale that were best by..get this...Aug 2008! I also let the store owner know, of course.

 

I've been waiting for a reply on my e-mail to CCB for over a month now.

 

Right, no answer is because they got your email, immediately called the corporate lawyers, and got an reply of, "Don't answer him! He'll record it somewhere and and we'll be liable for millions!"

If you don't get an answer, its because brewers are people, which means they're busy, forgetful, stupid, apathetic, angry, any one of a thousand emotions... any of which apply to you, as well. I would guess that "corporate" is an extreme rarity for boilerplate response or no answer.

 

I've emailed Short's, Bell's and Founders in the past and received emails back from all of them.

 

Try them on Facebook. Was it something they might not know the answer on yet? Like, say, a fruit in the room date?

 

Having started to feel like I was nagging my local Lagunitas sales rep about availability(or lack of) of a couple of their beers in my area I decided to just shoot the company an email to see if maybe a different person might have different answers. The next day or so I got a phone call from the sales rep informing me that they just forward emails to him if they fall under his area. Oops.

Eric from Kern River Brewing has always been good about responding.

Those were the only 2 breweries I've tried contacting.