Dionysus Brewing

You make a good point, but at least people can see how far we have come.

 

Made the gofundme in May but didn't list it until July 1st and we reached our goal within hours.

 

I was going to say that the difference was that in this thread no one was blindly supporting the brewery, calling people questioning the premise "haters", or basically being the worst PR person ever - but then I read the second page.

I'd not buy a membership based solely on the co-owner's posts. Seriously, it's not that hard to be even average at customer service - why are beer folks so bad at it??

 

Thats awesome, but $3000 is not a large sum of money in the world of business.

 

Kyle,

I don't have a horse in the race here, nor do I really care about any of the posts in here. I hope you succeed, because my only interest is having as much great tasting beer available to me at a reasonable price as I can get my grubby hands on.

That said, I hope you go read a lot of posts that Jacob has made with regards to Modern Times. He does customer service almost perfectly. I just found this thread right now, and had no opinion on your operation at all. Then I read your first post and I immediately thought negative about a product that I never even had tasted. It is perfectly fine for you to respond here, but you can't do it like a normal person. There can be no emotions, and you have to think about how your words in print come across to other people. You are losing a ton of customers if you have a bad attitude. If you want advice on how to do it wrong see: Iron Triangle. I doubt anyone is going to take them seriously unless they make the world's best beer, and even then it will be a fight for them to get on the right track. Also, if you are going to take the customer outreach seriously, please learn how to use spacing. The wall of text comes across as anger to me. Use spaces.

You have not been inappropriate or a dick, just slightly off putting with these messages. I am personally holding judgement until I am able to try one of your beers, but I don't want you to lose potential customers because they took your messages wrong.

I am a homebrewer myself and would love to someday share my creations with a lot of people that have never had it, but I doubt I could ever do it financially. I completely understand, I just don't want you to generate negative feelings before you even get the chance to share.

 

I can't even imagine that covers the lawyer fees attributed by doing the alcohol license paper work, to be honest.

 

Hmmm. One of these statements sure changes the context of the other.

 

You all realize this is a nanobrewery right? A couple barrel brew system. Small batches of beer. 200+ people shelled out $200 for ten 750mL bottles and merchandise. From the man's own words, there will be a tasting room affixed to the brewery to get his beer out to the people who didn't get a membership. He's not opening up a gigantic multi-hundred barrel state of the art brewery with botanical gardens, gastropub, and spa/sauna. If you have a better idea on how to open a brewery than how Kyle's already started his up, then start your own!

I once again stress that I am a mere future customer and not affiliated with the brewery in any way. i just don't understand you all condemn someone starting up a business that is also their passion and only look at things you see as negative. If you don't want to spend your money on the unknown, then simply don't spend your money on it. You say you want him to succeed but you criticize even the most minute of things like "how he sounds" on an internet forum. Why not judge for yourself by going to the brewery when they open. Try the beer. Talk to Kyle and the other partners and then judge. But don't criticize and condemn before you've given a new start up brewery a fair chance.

 

There's enough good beer in CA right now that I don't have to give any brewery a fair chance. Especially when their first communication to the world is bashing people that have the audacity to question their new business.

Why on earth wouldn't I judge him based on his presence on these forums? I have nothing else to base an opinion off of, so why waste that initial impression with a hostile and poorly formatted post? Now I think he's either too stupid to figure out how to communicate or why that would be important, or too lazy to spend the time to do a reasonable job at it.

Also, I never said I wanted him to succeed. I wish everyone the best, and more good beer isn't a bad thing, but he's going to have to do a better job selling dreams and hopes...

 

Why don't these guys just open their brewery and if the beer goes over well some point down the line start a members club? Why does everyone start a club before they even brew beer? I don't get it. Is it just a quick way to start generating some income? If I recall correctly wasn't the Bruery the ones that really started the whole reserve society thing? And hadn't they been around a while before they started it?

 

It generates both income and hype.

Lost Abbey's Saints and Sinners clubs predated the RS by a couple years and in many ways served as a template both of positives to emulate and pitfalls to avoid.

The Bruery had been open for a little over a year (16 months I believe) when they announced the RS.

I agree with the idea of not starting a club until you've been open and releasing beer but as long as people will throw money at you based on homebrew and social media hype, what's the incentive for a nascent brewery to be patient?

 

Wait, so a brewer at Lengthwise tries to inflate his beers by creating fake accounts and at the same time deflate other awesome, well renowned beers, then he goes to start his own brewery? That is fucking awful.
There doesn't seem to be any timetable on when the beers will be ready, I think y'all are nuts for shelling out money on this, but good luck!

 

I don't think California allows you to produce alcohol for sale until you have your license in hand. So gotta wait for that first.

 

Even more of a reason to not piss away money quite yet, paying for something that might never exist.

 

Like I said, it's vaporware at this point. But hey, he's worked as a bus boy, a dish washer and a toilet cleaner at a brew pub who made him vote 1 for KRBC Citra so that his employer's could put their shitty beer for $3 a pint in Bakersfield. BAKERSFIELD OF ALL PLACES!!

Is the meth eating away at the pint business that badly that they need to lower it enough to entice them for that? Eh, just comes off as a hostile person who doesn't like to be grilled or questioned and wants interest free loans.

 

There is great irony that the guy outraged at the posting of false information... previously posted false information.

 

I've tried 4 of kyles homebrew sample beers -- tart farmhouse, strawberry sour, BA strawberry, stonefruit sour (all VERY solid for sour homebrews and minimal time with fruit/barrel aged. I also bought into his membership program. I did not buy into casa agria. it wouldn't have been as easy of a decision for me to buy into DOBS unless I had tried the beers... But shit, the quality is there, Kyle is a cool person and I'm always excited to watch someone's dream become a reality and even more excited to be a part of the journey if I can.

Everyone needs to start somewhere, and yes, maybe he doesn't know the best way to approach dealing with people on forums and criticism, but Jacob started somewhere too. I'm sure Jacob didn't become an ace at addressing people on forums without a bit of practice and trail and error. The important thing is he takes all of this, learns from it, and makes himself and his brewery better because of it. The worst thing ever is for someone to make a mistake and not learn from it. Let's give the guy a bit more of a chance first...

I do think it's a bit ignorant of people to call this all a joke this early in the game though. Let's air our concerns and constructive criticism but being close minded to it now before he even has a chance to even show what they've been working toward is crazy. If in 6-8 months there still isn't anything that has happened on their end, then bring the pitchforks out and I'll eat my words.

 

I think we can all learn a lesson from this thread about how start a brewery thes days. You can make the most incredible 5 gallons of beer in the history of mankind but if you don't know how to RUN a business you are doomed. If you start a brewery hire the right people to do the right job. Sounds like this guy might want to A) Hire a PR person B) Just not come on this site and get lured in by the Trolls. More luck to him though.

 

FYI, Jacob McKean of Modern Times was a communications specialist with Stone for two years before starting MT. Trust me, he knows what he's doing.

The 'customer is always right' may be a truism, but no other crappy bromide will ever serve your brewery better in the long run.

 

this thread has delivered so far, CASA 2.0 imo. that said, subbed!