Brewing Master

Question:

   Recently I ordered a Tap-A-Draft system and 6 lbs. of John Bull extract from Beer, Beer, and More Beer. The extract shifted during shipment and damaged 2 of the blue bottles.    I e-mailed 3B Tuesday night about the problem and received an e-mail from them on Wednesday offering to replace them or credit my account. I received 2 new ones 2 days after I requested replacements.    I will be using them again, and for more than I had planned. Good customer service works. Steve

Response:

One more to add.  Due to recent competitions I had ended up with several White Labs certificates and a gift certificate to Homebrew Adventures in Charlotte, NC.  I contact Ale Clayson the manager and he said I could order online and indicate the yeast certificates I was sending and the gift certificates and he would deduct them from my merchandise total. I ordered online Monday afternoon, and snail mailed the certificates about 4 pm. I recieved the packages Tuesday afternoon.  There is no way the mail service has even delivered the certificates yet. Now that is customer service, shipping before even receiving the certificates. They also have online tracking after 48 hours, but my order didn’t even take that long. Highly recommended www.homebrew.com Cheers, Mike

Response:

I ordered online Monday afternoon, and snail mailed the certificates about 4 pm. I recieved the packages Tuesday afternoon.  There is no way the mail service has even delivered the certificates yet.

I have found that homebrewers are pathologically honest people.  You told him that the certificates were on their way and that is all he needed to know.  We have been in the retain homebrew trade for 6.5 years now and have only had six checks bounce.  I am sure that all six were just human error. I get calls from customers in an absolute panic because I forgot to charge then for some small item like a stopper.  They want to give me a credit card number for a 45 cent stopper.  I tell them to forget it, but they will insist that I charge them for it the next time they are in the store and they remember when they come in. Dealing with the wholesale trade largely reflects this pathology.  We have been making stuff for 11 years.  A couple of million dollars or so have gone out, yet I would be surprised to see that we have written off much more than a few thousand over these years. — Dan Listermann Check out our E-tail site at www.listermann.com – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – One more to add.  Due to recent competitions I had ended up with several White Labs certificates and a gift certificate to Homebrew Adventures in Charlotte, NC.  I contact Ale Clayson the manager and he said I could order online and indicate the yeast certificates I was sending and the gift certificates and he would deduct them from my merchandise total. Now that is customer service, shipping before even receiving the certificates. They also have online tracking after 48 hours, but my order didn’t even take that long. Highly recommended www.homebrew.com Cheers, Mike

Response:

In continuing with the "Outstanding Service" thread: I ordered a Munton’s Gold Continental Pilsner Kit from Austin Homebrew in Texas. No tracking number sent but the order arrived safely in only 2 working days by regular ground U.P.S. They are only 2 states away from me but that’s still fast service, they obviously got started on my order right away! Prices were good and answered my email question within 14 hours. I’ll certainly deal with them again. Dave

Response:

Speaking of great service, if you haven’t ordered from www.morebeer.com you should give them a try.  Great people out in CA and I am in OK and I always recieve my orders within 7 business days or less. Toll free number and the people are real friendly. I will only do business with them. Cary

Response:

Does Northcountry sell to homebrewers? Yes, provided you do not have a HBS in you area selling their malt.  Also, one sack might be expensive to ship depending upon your location.  If you can get over 37 sacks you can get really attractive bulk pricing.  Even at 25 sacks you are talking about a pallet of grain and pretty good pricing.

Even at 14 sacks, the pallet made sense. Err, it was long before that. As I gleefully went down the list of what I needed, they told me at somewhere around 4 or 6 that it would now be less expensive to take a pallet.  So I gleefully added every grain that looked interesting.  I think it was 14 sacks (including 2 for another prof) by the time I was done. And I’ve had similar good luck with grape & granary–I actually had a package arrive the next day . . . hawk, perhaps the only one who ever had 700 lbs of grain delivered to the campus loading dock — Richard E. Hawkins, Asst. Prof. of Economics    /"   ASCII ribbon campaign These opinions will not be those of              X    and postings. Penn State until it pays my retainer.           /  

Response:

Does Northcountry sell to homebrewers?

Yes, provided you do not have a HBS in you area selling their malt.  Also, one sack might be expensive to ship depending upon your location.  If you can get over 37 sacks you can get really attractive bulk pricing.  Even at 25 sacks you are talking about a pallet of grain and pretty good pricing. Look at it this way.  Multiply how often you brew in a year by the average amount of base grain you would use per beer. In my case that is 30 x 10 = 300 lb/55 = 5.45 sacks or 6 sacks.  Get some buddies on board and you are golden.  Also, grain properly stored grain will last, so order extra, or split a sack of crystal, etc. Before long the costs of brewing are pretty low. Cheers, Mike

Response:

With all the talk as of late about homebrewing shops and suppliers and their service, I though I would share my recent experiences with two.

I’ll put in a word here for B3. I placed a web order with them two days ago for a counterpressure bottle filler and some various fittings and things I need to convert a picnic cooler into a portable draft box. Then I realised that my plan for the project was missing a component. I called, explained what I had ordered and what I was doing and the guy told me what I needed (a 3" pass-through shank)and added it to my order right there. The package is en route and I’m tracking it on the UPS website right now. It’s particularly nice because they *sell* a draft box pre-made, and also all the bits if you want to tinker around and build one yourself. Actually, I have a question about this that I’ll put in another thread. ben

Response:

Mike, Does Northcountry sell to homebrewers? Mark

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – With all the talk as of late about homebrewing shops and suppliers and their service, I though I would share my recent experiences with two. Last Monday about lunchtime I faxed and e-mailed my order of grain to www.northcountrymalt.com.  I received a return e-mail about 5 minutes later saying they would confirm the order and pricing on Tuesday.  On Tuesday they shipped the malt via truck (it was a good sized order) and confirmed it about 1:30 pm.  It was delivered Thursday in the early afternoon to the delivery point. Monday of this week about 3 pm I placed an pretty decent sized order with www.grapeandgranary.com.I received and order acknowledgement immediately (you always do). About 2 hours later I received a processing acknowledgement.  The next day about 10:45 am I got an e-mail saying it had shipped.  It did not have a UPS tracking number for some reason, so I was wondering when it would arrive. Yesterday when I got home from work about 4:00 pm it was sitting on the porch. Both these suppliers received my order, confirmed it, and shipped it in less than 24 hours.  I find that to be outstanding. Cheers, Mike

Response:

With all the talk as of late about homebrewing shops and suppliers and their service, I though I would share my recent experiences with two. Last Monday about lunchtime I faxed and e-mailed my order of grain to www.northcountrymalt.com.  I received a return e-mail about 5 minutes later saying they would confirm the order and pricing on Tuesday.  On Tuesday they shipped the malt via truck (it was a good sized order) and confirmed it about 1:30 pm.  It was delivered Thursday in the early afternoon to the delivery point. Monday of this week about 3 pm I placed an pretty decent sized order with www.grapeandgranary.com.I received and order acknowledgement immediately (you always do). About 2 hours later I received a processing acknowledgement.  The next day about 10:45 am I got an e-mail saying it had shipped.  It did not have a UPS tracking number for some reason, so I was wondering when it would arrive. Yesterday when I got home from work about 4:00 pm it was sitting on the porch. Both these suppliers received my order, confirmed it, and shipped it in less than 24 hours.  I find that to be outstanding. Cheers, Mike

Response:

www.williamsbrewing.com and www.morebeer.com do the same.  In fact I’d avoid any that don’t do instant confirmation and ship same or next day.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – With all the talk as of late about homebrewing shops and suppliers and their service, I though I would share my recent experiences with two. Last Monday about lunchtime I faxed and e-mailed my order of grain to www.northcountrymalt.com.  I received a return e-mail about 5 minutes later saying they would confirm the order and pricing on Tuesday.  On Tuesday they shipped the malt via truck (it was a good sized order) and confirmed it about 1:30 pm.  It was delivered Thursday in the early afternoon to the delivery point. Monday of this week about 3 pm I placed an pretty decent sized order with www.grapeandgranary.com.I received and order acknowledgement immediately (you always do). About 2 hours later I received a processing acknowledgement.  The next day about 10:45 am I got an e-mail saying it had shipped.  It did not have a UPS tracking number for some reason, so I was wondering when it would arrive. Yesterday when I got home from work about 4:00 pm it was sitting on the porch. Both these suppliers received my order, confirmed it, and shipped it in less than 24 hours.  I find that to be outstanding. Cheers, Mike

Response: