New to Ohio (2015)

Roller Blabe and Neptune are available in Powell at Ale Wine & spirits. They had at least 3 cases of Roller Blabe around 2 this afternoon.

 

Has anyone else seen cognac jesus?

 

Yes I found some in the Akron area today

 

Ninja City (Thai/Viet) restaurant sets up at Platform on Saturdays starting at 5PM. Awesome food and brew, you can't go wrong.

 

I also saw Warehouse in CLE got 2014 BA Old Rasputin if that's anyone's cup of tea. The $20/bottle slowed me down and I guess the 2015 was 12%+, but thought I'd put it out there.

 

Neptune bottled dated 7/10/2015. Why the delay?

 

'Cause Premium.

 

randomly went to Giant Eagle on Stelzer Rd. after work and stumbled upon what must have been a brand new shipment of Saber Tooth mixed with the other bombers, happily grabbed a couple.

 

That's what I thought. What's the solution to crappy distro?

 

Email campaign to Bell's to try to get them to switch to a different distro. Which likely won't do a whole lot.

 

Picked up two 6-packs of Neptune yesterday expecting to love it, but it's not really my thing (too much cayenne and/or black pepper, maybe). Hoping somebody somewhere will want to trade at some point.

 

Remind me a lot of Dogfish's Chickory Stout

 

I have a really low tolerance for chili-pepper spice, so I just couldn't get past that. Thought I would be able to handle it, but was sorely mistaken.

 

Where could you get 6ers let alone 2 of em? NE OH is all single bottle limits, at least at my usually haunts.

 

Blacklick Wine & Spirits, and the full 6ers at a reasonable price was part of why I jumped on the deal. The plan was to be generous and share the first 6-pack last night (saving the other one for later), but after reading the ingredients, nobody in my house was even remotely interested.

 

Agreed - that's not going to fix the issue. Bell's doesn't care if their beer arrives a couple weeks later - it's still well within code and it's a giant PITA to drop contracts and switch distributors.

I personally don't think Premium thinks there is an issue, so the first step would be to let them know as a beer consumer you find this unacceptable. All the previous attempts to do so haven't gotten the message across, and I honestly think there's no way a boycott would help - there will always be people willing to buy those 6 packs of Hopslam and 4 packs of Founders Harvest even if they are 4 weeks old.

In other words, it seems we're pretty much fucked. Until Premium decides it's worth the extra inventory planning or scheduling investments to get beer to market quicker, you'll continue to see states like Arizona and California getting beers from breweries 5 hours away weeks before Ohio does.

 

Agree with this 100% People don't realize that once a brewery selects a distributor they have that distributor for LIFE. There are always exceptions to that rule (see 3 Floyds, Brew Kettle, etc.). But if a brewery wants to switch its not easy. And legal battles may ensue to make that happen. That's why its important for that brewery to make the best selection the first time. They may not get a second chance.

 

It is worth noting that Premium keeps answering inquiries with the line "We released the beer as soon as it arrived." I don't doubt this is true, but it may be a carefully worded excuse.

The real question is:

Did Bells made the beer available for pickup/shipment to states like Arizona and California before making it available to Ohio?
-or-
Did Premium just pick it up after other distributors did?

Seems like the first problem isn't something they could easily solve, but the second seems like an opportunity to have better pickup/shipping scheduling.

At any rate, I'm personally getting sick of seeing Premium take heat but also agree there hasn't been a good explanation as to why we're getting stuff after almost everywhere else.

 

I do not know for certain but it is a consistent Premium line that they release Bells beer when it hits the floor. I spoke to a few Reps about Hopslam and they mentioned being annoyed they did not get it until 30 days after it was bottled. Also remember last black note bottle release I believe it was in Minnesota before it even released in Michigan if I recall correctly.

 

So apparently Pumking is in 4-packs this year? Has anyone seen these yet?