Henry and Fran

I honestly dont have much of an issue with their prices being too expensive. For a small brewery with not a lot of equipment i'm sure they lose some money not buying and brewing in bulk. I was just complaining about weird pricing inconsistency between charging $20 for a bottle (now you and colby600 are giving mixed messages about bottle sizes) and, if we put growler glass in the equation, almost half the price for double the amount of the same beer.

I get having expensive tickets since logistically having a ticket for each bottle or growler would be horrible to deal with, i'm just hesitant of having to buy a ton of beer from a new brewery i've never had before and dont know if the beers are any good. Maybe if a release is at a better time and i have the budget for it i'll buy a ticket in the future, but in general i prefer to be able to choose how much beer to buy.

 

Valid point, for sure. I've only got one of their releases before, and split it with a couple friends so none of us were out that much $$, and we all got to try the beer. I'm back for round 2, so I guess that tells you something?

 

Quick question, are they good with scanning the eventbrite ticket on your phone or printouts only? The event mentions needing a printout.

 

Looks like a 32 oz growler to me.

 

so they aren't selling out? I may be mistaken.

Obviously if they screw up their price point it will cost them, but if they're selling out, they likely* aren't screwing up. DUCY?

*they could be at risk of getting short term gains but poisoning the well long-term if the consensus is they charge more than they're worth.

 

Well that's good to hear... $20 for 22oz isn't terrible. Steep but not insane

 

Went today and not sure if the nor’easter was affecting moods but it certainly didn’t have that magic feel or excitement that the early days of Grassroots breweries like HF and TH used to have. Just in, out, see ya. Owner seems like a character. I also didn’t have to wait for 2 hours to get a growler, so that’s nice too.

But who cares right? Let’s talk about the beer. They were giving giving samples of the sour ipa which I was surprised to enjoy so much. A tad watery maybe, but I’m excited to open a growler later and really dig in. It’s very mich like a mystic frappe, I don’t think ‘sour’ being the first descriptor does it justice.

The ipa I’m having now. It’s very good but it’s not blowing me away by any means, and it doesn’t stand out from many others. Maybe the NE ipa has already done everything it can.


All in all, glad I got to see this place in its primordial state. Interested to see where it goes...

 

The peanut butter cup stout is brutally infected. The IPA was meh. The sour ipa was the best of the bunch but it was nothing special. But hey at least I have these three growlers? Not sure what good they’ll do me now that the company has nuked its entire social media presence.

I would have been better off setting my $100 on fire. Never again.

 

Interested in more info on this. Tough week for Mass. breweries.

 

When did they close down their social media? FB, IG and Twitter are gone. Any idea what happened?

 

It sounds like they fleeced a whole lot of people: created a big hype, secretive place in the middle of nowhere (we love secrets), sold crazy expensive beers to like nine people, made a quick buck, and scooted out of town. Genius.

(Note: I have no idea of this is what happened, nor do I actually believe it is. However, it is humorous to me to imagine this was all some clever scheme whereby some average home brewer created some undeserved hype, gained a following, charged rubes $120 for a secret beer release that only like 70 people could go to then just ghosted.)

 

This was posted in one of my beer groups:

"Hello everyone. I am the owner of Henry and Fran. We are currently having difficulty accessing our social media accounts. It has nothing to do with the problems with Bowling Balls, just poor timing."

 

Ah, the old social media was hacked excuse. Learning from pro athletes. Weird they had problems with all social media accounts at the same exact time...

 

My favorite Untappd “review” of the stout: A nice Thanksgiving treat ... infected.

 

Ya some of those pictures on Untappd are pretty grizzly looking.

No idea what happened to the social media but there is a heated exchange on Untappd between a disappointed customer and the H&F account before the owner intervened via his own account and said the H&F account was “not a proper representation of us”. Perhaps the person behind the H&F account flipped out and went scorched earth? Total speculation on my part though. Regardless I’m fresh out of outrage after the whole Trillium debacle. Hopefully this bowling ball situation gets remediated to peoples’ satisfaction.

 

Hi Guys,


I’m Zach, the other half of Henry and Fran. Ask me anything.

 

I would first like to talk about some of the recent postings and happenings. Any other questions from this point forward, I’ll do my best to be a little more active on social media apart from simply posting pics.


This thread actually came to my attention when I got an email and phone call from one of your forum members. After I read through it I feel like one of the biggest issues is that you guys haven’t felt heard out in general. That is something that is completely my fault. If you have had a beer related issue. That is completely my fault. I have brewed, canned, and bottled every single beer that we have sold. If an email got missed or you felt ignored, I apologize. Some of this is a result of so many moving parts and some of it is a result of how my personality is. I’m kind of a quiet introspective person, I studied philosophy and dance(Ballet) in college, and really tried to use what I create now as a way of communicating with the world.


However, this community goes beyond simply being a product as an ethos is attached to it. You guys hold every brewer to an incredibly high standard. Don’t ever stop.


Any questions about pricing, beer, procurement, etc. I will answer as openly as possible.


I would like to address a couple things for you right away. A few comments were made about Tim and his online actions as being less than upfront, and he’ll likely be pissed I even mentioned this (Sorry Tim). What I can tell you from knowing this man for the better part of 15 years, is that is so far from the truth of who he is as a person. I would dare any person to find someone more kind, patient, and overall good. Tim, in all honesty, is often the better person between us. So, please realize he was trying to do the right thing.

I didn’t communicate with him a few customer happenings. And without speaking to him took a specific action that I felt was warranted. I also shut down all social media immediately. I totally get you guys thinking im trying to shirk some issue. But I had some personal safety concerns and took the time to figure out how to address them. Such as having a customer come to my house, and on a few occasions actual threats of varying severity. I buttoned up as much as I can those things.


I totally get someone being upset about the resse’s, and rightfully so. Its a $20 bottle of beer. As with ever single beer I make I put around a case and a half through “stress tests”. Essentially trying to mistreat it in every possible way to see how it affects the beer over the long term and if there are issues can usually find them by re-creating conditions. In a 5bbl batch of beer there were roughly 4800 individual Reese’s. There was no actual peanut butter used. I was trying to make it taste like candy, not peanut butter. What I didn’t know is what that amount of candy would do to the beer. As with any adjunct beer, there is a danger of re-fermentation. Thats exactly what happened with beers that were either mailed, kept warm/cellared etc. That is not to say it is necessarily the customers fault in any way. So please don’t take it as “I told you” Just more of what I’ve been able to find on my own. The yeast remaining becomes active and with this particular blend, tends produce a compound called acetaldehyde which gives a sour and sometimes green apple flavor. So, if you experience anything wrong when you open the bottle please bring it by on a release day or you can email [email protected] and I will do my best to get back to you within a few days and coordinate a time for you to come by the shop sometime during the week.



Thank You~Zach

 

Bummer....

Hopefully these guys realize it's not just a 20 bad beer, it's 120 worth of bad beer, and by forcing people to purchase 6 bottles of a 10 % adjunct stout it will obviously be traded or sold on the secondary market. Hopefully in the future they will change how they release/distribute their beers. Glad to hear they will try and make it right.

FWIW, Its unacceptable that people would threaten someone over something like this.

 

thank you. we do realize that. Our taproom should be open within a few months, at which point limits will be curved.

The reason limits are set in that manner, is an attempt to balance customer desire with what we have available for sale. I remember being in college and going to some releases where I waited for quite some time and only getting a bottle or two of what I wanted. In some cases where there were no limits, it would be sold out before my place in line. With limited parking and availability. We tried to figure out a way to address that. I don't want someone driving an hour or two to pick up a single bottle of beer or single four pack. I figured this amount would be sufficient for anyone wanting to buy a fair amount, split a ticket with a friend, or proxy. Again, I do realize that may be steep for some people, esp given the fees incurred by ticketing.

 

So I still have two bottles that I was going to give to friends. But I want to keep them as friends. What do i do with these two bottles?