SoCal Enjoy By distribution

SeaOfShells · Jan 8, 2013

I just received the following email from Stone in case anyone cares to read it. Long story short, It was a genuine response handled with nothing but class. I really respect Stone for responding when they could have just looked the other way:

Hello Travis,

First off, I’d like to thank you for being a “Stone loyalist.” You note that you’re “just one voice,” but we don’t see any of our fans that way. Our fans are what have made us all that we’ve become and all that we will ever be, and we thank you very much for your support. Please know that we completely understand where you are coming from in regards to the availability of Stone Enjoy By IPA. As such, I would like to get back to you with the explanation you deserve regarding the beer and our distribution methodology for it.

I think we can agree that Stone has historically done a terrific job of making sure Southern California is taken care of. If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t have noticed a perceived lapse in that SOP. From our core beers to specialty brews, anniversary brews, collaboration brews and rare beers like our Quingenti Millilitre barrel-aged one-time-only releases, all are made available throughout our home region all throughout the year. At very least, the hardest-to-procure of the bunch are put up for sale at our Stone Company Stores in Escondido, South Park, Oceanside and Pasadena. Some beers are such a limited run that the Stone Company Stores are the only places they are made available, meaning “our own” are the only ones in the world who ever get the opportunity to get their hands on them.

Stone Enjoy By IPA is different. For us, it’s far more than a beer, it is part of an initiative to preach the gospel of drinking beer fresh in order to enjoy it in all its glory. This is a message that we want to spread across the country. In addition to being outrageously delicious, it’s meant to be a dialog-starter; something to kick-start the proper consumption of beers, whether ours or anybody else’s. There is so much confusion about beer in this country right now and, as a leading American craft brewery, we feel an obligation to dispel myths and set the record straight. In order to do that, we want to get this beer out to all of our markets. In order to do that, we need to treat it like a rock band and put it on tour. As with any tour, while a band can ensure that they play a gig in their home town and show the fans that built them up to a tour-worthy entity the love they so richly deserve, by nature of touring, they must be gone from said home town 95% of the time even though they’d probably be happiest just hunkering down on the homestead.

We have a program in place that will get Stone Enjoy By IPA to every single one of our markets by 2014, and we must stick to it. That means we can’t hold back our already limited amount of this beer (we can only make so much at a time, especially since we bottle and ship the same day) and keep SoCal in the mix every time. We’ve already done that once and would have liked to have continued quenching the home team’s thirst, but simply isn’t feasible. That said, we are making sure all of our Stone Company Stores get some with each Stone Enjoy By IPA bottling so that, for one day (because it sells out that quick), our dedicated SoCal fans can get a couple of bottles or a growler fill. Even our Team Stone employees must vie for it with fans, so we really do know how you feel. We just can’t deprive fans around the country of Stone Enjoy By IPA while we continually show favoritism to one region, especially when it means educating beer drinkers and driving home a point that we feel very strongly about.

Again, we appreciate your support and we very much appreciate the fact that you like Stone Enjoy By IPA so much that you’re willing to go to bat for it. That’s extremely admirable and I hope you can appreciate why, as much as we’d like to make enough of Stone Enjoy By IPA to provide all of our markets with an endless supply, it is far from logistically feasible (like LeBron James jumping across the Grand Canyon infeasible). We hope you continue to enjoy the plethora of beers that we are able to get into the SoCal market (essentially, everything except Stone Enjoy By IPA, though since that beer is also made available at Stone Company Stores one day for each bottling, actually all of our beers are made available in SoCal). Thank you for sharing your concerns with us and feel free to do so at any time. Input like this can only make us better!
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luisc123 · Jan 8, 2013

Classy.

Earlycsquid · Jan 8, 2013

Not to mention that making it every other batch keeps things fresh and still leaves hype enough. If it was every batch then people in SoCal would start thinking it's not so special.

MLucky · Jan 9, 2013

SeaOfShells said: ↑

Yeah, unfortunately I live an hour from Pasadena, and 3 hours from San Diego. It's just frustrating to me.
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Not sure where you are exactly, but it sounds like you're somewhere around Thousands Oaks, which is, what, 150 miles from Escondido? I wouldn't expect to be treated like a local. If you lived in San Diego and couldn't get it, then maybe it'd be worth a nasty letter.

SoCal Enjoy By distribution

SeaOfShells Initiate (0) Feb 22, 2011 California

luisc123 Zealot (513) Oct 20, 2011 California

Earlycsquid Initiate (0) Jan 7, 2013 California

MLucky Initiate (0) Jul 31, 2010 California

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