Breweries Privately Contacting You

A brewery close to me just takes a copy of your credit card info and doesn't charge a deposit. What they do is ding you periodically if you are late returning their keg. So if you don't ever return it then ding ding ding, we have a loser.

 

Lastly, if keg sales were legal in Alabama, the deposit would probably equal the cost of the keg... $90-$100 depending on the size.

 

A keg deposit is normal, around here it is usually around 50.00. You get it back when you are done so I do not see the problem.

There is not a scrap yard anywhere that will buy kegs. They are property of the brewery and they want nothing to do with them. The scrap value of a regular Aluminum half barrel is less than 20.00, I do not think many folks out there are trying to scrap them.

As for the pricing, how can the bottle shop shop sell beer for less than the brewery?

 

Another good reason is that they do not make very good beer.

 

I haven't purchased a keg in a while, but that's how I remember it being done: they take your credit card info with the understanding that they will run it for the deposit (replacement cost) after 2 weeks unless you notify them with a reasonable alternative return date.

 

Keg deposits in MA are $30 flat - Euro, 1/6, and 1/2.

 

Unfortunately, that does not help them make the beer better. As a brewer myself, I value my customer's opinion, but when they are not specific as to what is wrong with the beer other than 'it is bad', there is nothing much I can do. That's like saying a food item sucked and not giving a reason...how is the vendor supposed to make it better if they do not know what their clientele thinks of it. Is it too salty? Spicy?

Specifics make a world of difference in an industry that is fueled by personal opinion.

 

You sure?

 

they also make sweet fuel tanks for dune buggies

 

I am starting to believe that a lot of smaller breweries are just bad business people.

 

The 3 tier system didn't go away, but Sun King definitely sells kegs to go. Sun King also fought to self distribute. That might be why. Since they self distribute anyway, they can sell their own kegs to the public. Most other breweries (to my knowledge at least) distribute through one of the distribution companies. That might be the loophole that allows some to sell direct and others not, self distribution.

 

I once checked into a beer on untappd and the brewery commented on it. I said something along the lines of "this a great sour beer, but it is definitely not a belgian pale ale" which is what it was listed as on untappd. The intent of the brewery was to make a peach sour. The final product was a sour. The listing was not a sour though.

The brewery used six comments on untappd to tell me how I was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about. They insisted that the beer base was a belgian pale ale that they intentionally soured to create a new beer. I thought "Great, that still doesn't make it a belgian pale ale." Any who, long story short, the brewery was so condescending that I have refused to buy any product from them and will continue to boycott them.

A friend chimed in on that and said that he was treated poorly the only time he visited the taproom and the beer there was unimpressive. They then started quizzing him on the last time he came in and saying how things were different now.

Both of us had a bad taste in our mouths from the way they treated customers. If you really care about what brewery it was, they have a currently active thread in the Great Lakes forum discussing an anniversary.

 

I used to live in Alabama, and then worked in Memphis. If you work for the brewery I think you work for, then I am really impressed by y'all's customer service. Every time I've ever heard someone complain about a problem with a beer you make, it has been met with a courteous response and genuine care for the customer and product So kudos to you. I think...

 

Hopefully Blue Pants is the brewery you were thinking of!

 

For one, they cannot undercut who they sell beer too. There's a few laws in place about that.
I'm also kind of of the opinion that a lot of smaller breweries, like south of 30 bbl brewhouse small don't really like selling kegs of their beer to retail accounts because of what I mentioned in my previous post. They'd rather see those kegs on tap handles or be contacted specifically about it so that they can put that into their numbers and so that their kegs can stay in motion. A single sixtel might not seem like a lot, but when you have an allotment of a single pallet of them and really need one that's not there because it's sitting in a party store waiting to be picked up because your sales person happens to like one of the sales staff. The struggle is real.

 

Well, I tend to write exactly what im thinking in my untapped reviews, which this is referencing. In this case, it was a watery porter that was supposed to have a mole back, and I got none of the mole. I didn't feel the need to explain that here, since my post was mostly in jest.

 

Ill post this again - In my review, I gave reasons as to why I rated it poorly. A mole porter with little to no mole. My post was clearly a joke, that many people here got. Put down the glass for a little bit and jump off the contrarian overreaction train.

 

Honkey, you brew for blue pants?

 

I do indeed.