Labels

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Founders CBS


The Wine and Cheese Place will be starting Founders CBS Canadian Breakfast Stout Reservations around 8:15.



Since I am confident that it is arriving today and I have an allocation.    I thought I would start the reservations process at 8:15.   I would rather do this before we open and I am not interrupted with other things here.

sold out
.


After it goes live and  you click the link and see nothing, that means it is sold out and I have "turned it off".

  • We only have 24 bottles (well 23, we need to save one for us to beer geeks to drink at the store).  1 bottle per person.  
  • You can request pickup at any of our stores or shipping.  It might take a few days to get it transferred.
  • Just because you get your order in is no guarantee, I will need to confirm.  Our system has no way of automatically stopping at 23 orders.

  • Your confirmation will say something like your order has been reviewed and waiting for product.  You will then get another email telling you that the beer is ready for pick up at the store when it does arrive in the next few hours.


Founders CBS...$16.99 / 750ml





Grand Rapids, Michigan, August 19, 2011—Founders Brewing Co. Vice President/Director of Marketing Dave Engbers announced today that the highly anticipated Canadian Breakfast Stout (CBS) will be the second release in the company’s 750mL “Backstage Series”. It will be released to the market on October 3, 2011, with a taproom release party on October 1.
There has been a great deal of anticipation and speculation regarding the upcoming release after the success of Blushing Monk, the series’ debut, earlier this year. Canadian Breakfast Stout is the epitome of why Founders launched the Backstage Series: it brings some of the brewery’s most sought-after beers, which have been available primarily at the taproom or at a few select events, to a much larger audience.
"Canadian Breakfast Stout is an Imperial Stout brewed with a blend of coffees and imported chocolates and then aged in spent bourbon barrels that have most recently been aging pure Michigan maple syrup. The final product has had stellar reviews and currently is the 5th highest rated beer in the world on BeerAdvocate.
As co-founder Dave Engbers explains, “Releasing small specialty batches is a great way for us to connect to our core beer enthusiast. Fundamentally, we are a small brewery that loves to do things our own way. This isn’t about flooding the shelves with a beer that we hope people will try; it’s about producing the best damn beer we can brew and offering it to those enthusiasts that have supported our passion for great beer.”
While we aren't ready to release the next beers in our Backstage Series, we maintain that it will consist of "popular one-offs” that have been offered in the taproom over the years and have become favorites among patrons and brewery staff.
“I think part of what people love about Founders, besides our beer, is that we listen to what they are saying,” says President Mike Stevens. “With our new line, now we can offer them more of what they’ve been asking for.”
We expect to release one additional product in the 2011 Backstage Series later this year and 3 more release in 2012." -- Founders



22 comments:

Catie said...

Oh man, servers overwhelmed?

T said...

Agreed. I can't get through.

Catie said...

Wow. I've been trying to make it go through for 15 minutes, and now nothing? That was really frustrating.

Anonymous said...

HAHAHA! I was logged in at 8:14 and watched the link go live. I clicked on it within a moments notice of it going up. Then the site got jammed for about a minute. Then when I tried to submit my order (I had to be one of the first), the site went down! LOL! Then I waited another 10 minutes for it to come back up. When it was finally up (I had been refreshing every 5 seconds), the site got jammed again! Then within 45 seconds I filled out my order, pressed submit and they had already sold out! HAHAHAHAHAHA! WOW!!!!!

Catie said...

That was incredibly frustrating. Obviously I can't tell you how to run your business, but if you took reservations, at least I would have known weeks ago that I wasn't going to get one. And I wouldn't have had to spend my morning refreshing a dud website.

I really hate to be the person who complains on the internet, but this beer was supposed to be a birthday present for someone. I'm just really frustrated that after asking in person at the store, calling the day before to confirm, and clicking the link right when it went up, I still didn't get one because your servers couldn't handle the volume. Anonymous may find it funny, but I'm just pissed off.

Paul Hayden said...

Catie,
sorry, we tried to be as fair as possible. Everybody had to deal with the same thing. Everybody had to deal with the crash also. So even though it was frustrating, it was still fair.

Anonymous said...

Next time use a lottery or something! As a reward for the frustrations I dealt with today I'll place my next few beer orders somewhere else!!!

Anonymous said...

All is not lost, Paul is not the only game in town. Good luck catie.

Anonymous said...

Catie,

Are you or BA or STL Hops? If I can land more than a bottle or two than I would give you one at cost.

Paul,

Don't worry about the hate brother. You sold CBS at a dollar less than what even Founders was selling it at their tap house. You're still my man in the business brohammer!

When you getting Founders BS in, you know yet?

Paul Hayden said...

Again, we are trying to be as fair as possible, we asked customers about a lottery. Most wanted to stick with this system. We also tried to do it nice and early so you do have a chance to find it somewhere else. Remember we only had 24 bottles and probably 1000s of people looking for it! I don't believe that is an exaggeration

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for doing this for us. I know you could have made a list, but in a way, this is more egalitarian. We can't all be winners.

TWCP is still the best prices in town with the freshest beer.

Anonymous said...

Didn't get a bottle, but wanted to thank TWCP for setting up a process that was fair, and for being open and honest with the customer base, which is certainly not the case for many other places around town.

Brian said...

I think you need to go old school and have people wait in line at the store. Then the people who really wanted it would get it. This internet ordering is bs. Anyone around the world has the same chance as a local patron? That doesn't seem like a great way to treat loyal customers.

Unknown said...

I'm sure that he didn't know that his site was going to crash. Give the guy the benefit of the doubt and think about all that he does to keep his business legit to make fantastic stuff available in a way that I'm sure comes at the expense of his own pocketbook. He could have easily done what many stores do and sell it for $25-$30 because it would have been easy to do. Instead he sold it for a dollar less than what even Founders sold it. How's that for care?

I see your point though Brian. I might agree with you, and I'm sure that he's taking the fiasco under consideration. Paul's a good dude.

Anonymous said...

I didn't get a bottle, but appreciate having the opportunity to try. You're going to hear a lot from unhappy people telling you how to run your business, but I think you did a nice job.

With the level of demand, there was no way to please everyone. As long as you were honest with people, you did the best you could.

Hope to get some next time.

Jorkan Morstad said...

Actually depending on getting one of 24 bottles of a beer with such an overwhelming demand is a pretty huge gamble... Have you never tried ordering something online before when the demand was huge? Is it really a surprise that the server had issues? And anyhow, lots of people like the fact that Paul has a 1st come 1st serve policy via the internet b/c it allows those that don't have an inside track to get on a list the opportunity to buy one. As far as lining up at the store, the online "packet lottery" allows those that work the opportunity to get one without having to take a day off.

Paul Hayden said...

Brian,
That is why we do internet to give a fair shake for everyone at all four of our locations. Plus we have a large number of regulars online. I have regulars that spend a lot of money online. That being said, only 3 bottles made it out of town, the rest stayed in town.

Paul Hayden said...

Lottery and all that stuff is an option, we had over 10 people asking if they could camp outside the night before to get a bottle. Each way somebody gets left out. How much work do we want to go through to sell 24 bottles?

Paul Hayden said...

It honestly did not dawn on me that the system would crash. Did not even cross my mind. Live in and learn.

Jorkan Morstad said...

Paul -

There are those of us that truly appreciate the online ordering system. It is nice to not have to have an inside contact at a store to get on a list or have to take a day off work to camp out somewhere. Many of us still find your way the best way even when we don't end up getting a bottle.

Thanks for putting so much work into making <$200 for your store, some of us really appreciate it.

Zac said...

Wow. I live in Columbia and just went over to the Schnucks across the road and scored a bottle they hadn't even unpacked yet. I bet some of you could probably drive the two hours and get some for yourself.

BTW, no one is ever happy with these sorts of things. You're lucky you have a place like TWCP. There will be other beers.

Catie said...

I understand that it's a fair system, I was just upset because it was supposed to be a present for my boyfriend... I would have loved the opportunity to camp out overnight at the store so I could have given an attempt at proving that I wanted the CBS more than other people.

I am a big fan of TWCP, don't get me wrong. I only moved to stl recently, and I was really happy to find it, and I'll certainly still be a customer.

Anonymous (or anyone else):
I'd be willing to pay more than cost, honestly. I'm on BA as Firemann if you want to message me.