Great Notion

Background? I have been a consumer of products for decades. I'm not sure what other background you may be referring to. It seems like you're trying to imply that since I don't have background working in sales and marketing that my opinions on the subject are irrelevant. If I worked in the business/marketing area you all would already have my resume. In regards to what I think is lacking ... see all other previous posts.

For instance .... my latest post regarding your FB post. What is the point of gloating about how quickly you sold out of crowlers? It creates hype .... which as you point out you don't need right now due to already high demand and limited supply. Someone obviously agrees because you edited the post. Then there is the issue of your post explaining your methods for crowlers releases, which was unclear and apparently frustrated a lot of people who showed up and expected crowlers but nothing was available (I wasn't one of them by the way). And then you all apparently started doing silent releases almost immediately after this post. Just really confusing and frustrating from a consumer standpoint.

 

Thanks for reaching out, but I have no real opinion on Great Notion's marketing strategy, or even much awareness of it if you have one.

LockeNess33 seemed surprised that you didn't have "someone in who knows what they're doing (at least a little bit) on the business/marketing side of things." I suggested that GNB seemed to be doing quite well despite what he perceived as an absence. That's all.

 

Yeah I'm not sure how you got dragged into this. It seems like a thorough reading of the thread from GN (a thread specifically about the GN beers and business) is warranted before asking questions that have already been answered.

 

Maybe they know I'm an excellent graphic designer with a good portfolio of work in the brewing industry. Or maybe it's my deft hand at haiku.

 

And what, Sir, is your background? 'Cause that's the question you are really asking, right?

 

And, in the process, save themselves the cost of hiring someone. Either as a consultant, or some more fixed.

 

lockness is really cvnting up this thread. How many posts do we need to have about one person who doesn't like the way GN does their social media? have a beer and SFU already

 

Interesting ... I actually got a different impression of his post. I'm just not clear on how anyone's background is relevant when giving feedback to a business. I am a customer of your business ... that is all the background I need in order to be qualified to give you feedback. He says he was all ears regarding feedback, but yet didn't read all of the relevant feedback included in this thread. Weird.

 

In contrast to your post which is incredibly insightful. Thanks for your contribution to the beer community.

EDIT: Also, might I suggest you learn how to spell. And how to tag someone in a post. And how to abbreviate. I could recommend some courses for you.

 

Just make sure the owner doesn't come outside before a crowler release and look pleased at the amount of people in line! What a horrible person.

 

Who said anyone was a horrible person? You're making some extreme jumps here. If I was a business owner, I know that I certainly wouldn't be giddy about seeing my customers having to wait in line to get my product. I would be much more apologetic and trying to do everything I can in order to improve the experience of my customers. Apparently this is a foreign idea to some. Maybe it's just my Midwest way of thinking? I don't know.

 

what did I misspell? I would think with your long history of complaining in this forum that you would be familiar with the term. insert the "v" instead of the "u" so it doesn't get flagged. sorry for the confusion. please don't lump your logic in with other mid-westerners. thx

 

Good point. However, while they may be unwilling to go back and read through the previous pages of posts ... I am similarly unwilling to take the time to repeat everything that I have already stated that is so readily available. All are equally to blame

Trust me ... I got your point. I was just being an ass

I'm glad you think I have a long history in this forum though ... I still feel like a newbie. Thanks for that.

I'm genuinely curious what logic you disagree with. In my experience business owners in the Midwest are some of the best in the country when it comes to prioritizing taking care of their customers over all else (no offense to the NW ... that is really prevalent up here as well). That is the only point I was making when I mentioned the Midwest.

It sounds like your experiences have not shown this to be true?

Also, I can help with some capitalization lessons if you'd like.

(Kidding )

 

This thread needs more love,
haikus, olive branches, beer,
and Ken Kesey blurbs.

 

They seem to be working pretty hard to improve the experience of their customers.. They're upping their capacity to brew more beer so that people don't have to wait in line for it. I don't see why they're getting so much flack from you. Do you read the other regional forums? In every region there is a brewery whose to-go sales could be operated differently. And if they did operate differently, they'd piss a different person off. In any case, they kindly asked for you to suggest something, and all you said was that their social media was operated poorly - not exactly constructive.

One other thing I want to highlight is this obsession with to-go sales on BA. Crowlers are one small aspect of their business, so why the hell are the crowler sales giving anyone enough to hate them? I've been to GNB once. I was with a lot of family. They accommodated my puppy by offering shade and water, and the server even made my grandmother a shandy. The service was outstanding, the food was delicious, and the beers were fantastic. It was a great experience!

 

With the caveat that I've never been to GN, a couple thoughts:

What you describe on your visit is the norm in the NW. That is expected behavior from a brewery/bar. We've got so many breweries that make great beer, that if one doesn't have great atmosphere/service/food/vibe/whatever, we've got dozens of other choices, no matter how hyped the beer.

If someone's preferred choice of drinking a given breweries beers is via growler/crowler, then if the beer is difficult to get via that method, it's, obviously, going to color their view of the brewery. When a brewery chooses to go the hype/limited availability route, they need to expect a certain amount of feedback.

In general, we love our breweries a lot, and we tend to be passionate about or favorites. Not all love is puppies, lollipops, and rainbows. The difference between a pat on the back and a kick in the ass is about 18 inches. There's a place for both in discussing beer.

 

Again, nobody is saying that they hate Great Notion. I simply provided my opinion on how they run things. As I said preciously, I'm not going to further clutter up the thread by regurgitating my previous posts ... they are there for anyone who wants to go back and read my thoughts. I don't really have anything else to add.

I do love Great Notion and always have a stellar experience in the taproom on non release days. That's why I care enough that I take the time to communicate my criticisms.

 

Thank you all for your awesome feedback! I absolutely love the passion you share for beer and appreciate the amount of thought everyone here has had for Great Notion.

We apologize if sometimes our lines are too long for Crowlers and if our beer sells out quickly. Again, we can only make 7 bbls of beer at a time and we only have 5 small fermenters and 6 brite tanks. We did not choose to go the "hyped/limited availability" route, instead this is what became of us due to a number of factors both from our combined owner skill sets and chance (of finding the Mash Tun, for example).

We are trying to increase our efficiency and effectiveness as a business on a daily basis, which is why you will sometimes see us post FB events for our Crowler Releases and sometimes not. We run what some people call AB Tests. I think many of you have read our recent Crowler blog post on why we currently are doing most Crowler releases on weekdays at noon. Typically these will be on a Wednesday or Friday. Sometimes we may not announce them. By doing this, it will hopefully, as many customers have asked for - allow our allotted 250 Crowlers to last past 5 pm. We also did offer some last weekend for people who can't make it to our pub during the week. You can always check our beer menu live on Untappd or our website.

We can't win in terms of pleasing all customers. We have different audiences on FB vs IG vs BA so we try to spread the love and yet still aim to keep consistency and service efficiency high. Please bear with us through the summer until we roll out our 30 bbl brewhouse and canning line and hopefully availability will increase.

We will test out the current line/queueing method vs online ticketing methods at our new location. We don't aim for long lines at our new place but I think it's ok sometimes for an owner to be happy that more customers want their product than they can make. It means we are doing a good job AND that we have a problem to solve - which we are working on. We aren't happy that people can't get our product, just happy that people want to buy it in general. We went from homebrewers to running a popular brewery and sometimes it's nice to smile and be proud for a minute.

Back to testing lines vs online ticketing. We would really like to test out online ticketing now but we can't. The reason is we don't have the storage to hold people's crowlers. We need to make them and sell them asap. Our walk in cooler is way too small and cramped.

If you guys have other suggestions, Andy, James and I are all ears. Please say hi to us when you come into the pub. We'd love to meet you all and buy you a beer. Maybe we can do a collabo called Grape Lotion?

Paul