J Wakefield Releases

Since when has saying your are sorry been enough of an apology as a business man? A real apology would be to take everyone's name down that was trying to buy the bottles that they ran out and say you get first crack at our next release (DFPF for instance), you have a week to purchase them before they go on sale to the public. That would be the sort of apology I would be looking for and one that any decent business man would think of who is truly owning up to their mistake.

 

Sorry to use your quote here, Colt, I am just using it as a means to illustrate my previous point. Many people on this site have their minds made up about J. Wakefield from how he was introduced by the OG society gaffs and it is through that lens of "hate" that he gets a lot of vitriol directed at him from small slights. Apologizing to people face-to-face like a man is a generally positive behavior yet when viewed through previous biases it is suddenly "very bad".

Truth be told, I know anonymous discussions on the internet are not going to change any one's mind. I just hope people that are on the fence, or have not had JWB beers/met the guy remember the title of this website. We're literally advocates for beer because we love great brews. Please keep that in mind when thinking about JWB and the family man who runs it.

 

Completely agree with this. I got to the event around 2:30 with the plans to line up for bottles. I was disappointed, but I did not feel that it was the time to confront the guy about it. Other than that, it was a great event and I didn't want to take his time to complain about one aspect of it. I am far from the only person in this situation. While trivial, I was hoping to see something about this mishap on their Instagram sometime between the event and their next #BreweryBootCamp. Instead they just removed any reference to the 3PM release to their earlier posts. To somebody who hasn't talked to anybody from the brewery since the event, it would look a lot more like sweeping it under the rug than owning up to it.

Truth be told, we are even talking about this because enough people (including myself) were able to try the brews at the event and were likely blown away by them. I tried ranking my top beers from the event and it was difficult for me to order #1-5, but they were all from JWB. Some of their beers are simply that good.

 

Disclaimer: I was not an OG member nor did I intend to buy bottles from the last release nor attend Wakestock. I have met him in person and tried many of his beers (highly rated on this site) and I have to say two things:

1. He is not a nice nor sincere individual.
2. Few of his beers are actually good/worth seeking out

I wish him the best of luck with his ongoing business practices!

 

As an outsider, he has nobody to blame but himself for the conclusions people have drawn about him. Why? Because even though he's been given the chance to respond, return an email, make a post (etc) about such "small slights", he instead has chosen to ignore them or sweep them under the rug. THAT is more telling of his character then the mistakes, IMO (and again, as a non-OG).

Everyone makes mistakes and I don't know anyone that would expect a homebrewer with a day job to launch a brewery and not have hiccups. It's his response (naming beers that appear like giving the finger) and lack of response is what appears to ruffle most feathers. *not to mention he appeared to shave every last corner he could to "fulfill" or "end" the OG society, then immediately starts crushing releases.

In most business practices, you use the same medium you used to announce something to apologize or publish a mistake. If you are going to use Instagram to promote a bottle sale and to get people out, then use Instagram to post a correction or apology...that's how you "own" a mistake, at minimum.

 

JWB's Facebook CLEARLY STATED that they would be releasing tickets for the bottles at the event. (So I used my cognitive thinking skills and showed up for the event before it started because I knew the bottle counts for each were 150) On his instagram, JWB states they selling bottles at 3pm (When I used my cognitive thinking skills, I assumed, like FB's release, they were releasing the bottles, which we'd of already got tickets for at 12pm) Guess what? THATS WHAT HAPPENED. All you guys that couldnt get there until 3pm or whatever your excuse was for not attending the beginning of the event is the reason you didnt get bottles, or in some case, didn't get the FULL allotment. Relax. You sound like the guy that always lucks out at the Cycle event on repeat. This is turning into a South Carolina hype thread with hatred on a brewer who makes great beers but sucks at marketing. Big deal, we all still want his beers except for a few keyboard warriors. We get it OGs, you don't like J. Wakefield and you don't want anything to do with him, he doesn't want another club and he shouldnt have one. I can easily look through this thread now to find that out, thank you. Next up, DFPF on February 27th, hopefully if it doesnt release early. If it does, oh well, its beer, awesome, sought after beer.

 

What about releasing a fruited stout to OG and then releasing those nice choice coconut/vanilla/etc variants at the party literally days later? Doesn't that seem a bit odd to anyone?

 

Yea... this is wrong. This isn't an opinion thing, it was 100% clearly stated. Their posts clearly said tickets for the bottles will be sold at 3 at the event and they can be picked up after the event from 5:30 - close. Your cognitive thinking skills led you to make a wrong decision, and you got lucky because an employee made an accident (as Wakefield has apparently said himself).

 

Where did you see Wakefield say an employee made a mistake?

 

No, I for one and I would also say the majority of OG's DO NOT hate Wakefield, its not personal. Remember, we are the people that supported him way way way before the brewery opened. We tried his beers way back in 2011-2012, loved them, many of us meet and talked with him, and many had some great interactions with him. I personally did, and that is why we choose to back him personally and financially. In addition, we all knew it was going to take A LOT of time to get up and running. Our frustration is NOT with the length of time, or with "bad marketing", or him personally, it is as others have pointed out that in the end he barely even met his obligations for the OG society (exclusive donor party bottle, 2 surprises...), and how he seemed to become angry and frustrated with those that supported him early on.

Yes, he had a few as you call them "keyboard warriors" that early on expressed frustration and made personal attacks, but for him to then equate that behavior with his entire group of supporters seems wrong. Naming beers "Haterade", "Troll so Hard", and "keyboard muscles", and then releasing a bunch of excellent bottles directly after the society ends has definitely made many of us early supporters feel a bit used to say the least.

Do I "hate" him and not "like" him as you seem to think because of this? No, absolutely not, and I maintain that in all of my interactions in person with Wakefield he has come across as very personable and yes he brews great beer, for these reasons I choose to support him. But how in the world can we not feel frustration at how this situation has played out?

For some reason in your posts in this thread you come across as if you are blaming the customers and his supporters and not even acknowledging the fact that the brewery itself has made several errors, and now that the problems were because of a lack of cognitive skills on our part.

 

Ok, so jw never said it. People in the post said it.

 

Note my use of the word 'apparently'. People said that that is what he told them.

 

Dude, Im not blaming you, sometimes when people invest there money, it doesnt work out. The end. Enough with the sappy responses, report him to the BBB.

If you didn't have Instagram for Wakestock and you only saw FB, you could've rationalized to make the entire event to ensure bottles like the other 100 people in line that got bottles with me. I drove from Orlando with friends. I don't feel lucky because I can read. @Seamus

 

This is great, taking a subtle dig at Westbrook because they prefer release methods that take care of their local fans rather than catering their releases to Floridians who can waste 10 hours driving to them, while simultaneously defending Wakefield.

 

The JW apologists here are amazing.

 

Having worked in customer service for a long time, I've always taken these statistics to heart: "96% of unhappy customers don’t complain, and 91% of those will simply leave and never come back."

A good manager or someone trained in customer service has to notice and seek out those unhappy customers. I mean, I guess that really only matters if you care about your business or customers, though.

 

Actually, I love Westbrook but the guys in that LOCKED thread are annoyingly uninformative, like you're being. I also drove from FL to the BAMC release this year at Westbrook, lol.