Ordered centennial got centennial type

Hi everybody,
I'm new to this forum but have checked it regularly for the past two years and have had all the answers i needed. Now I have a question. I ordered 1/2 a pound of centennial hops a month ago from brewgadgets but got centennial-type hops instead, which i used before, liked them, but this time i was really looking forward to use the real stuff to make a comparison for an all centennial dipa i brew. i emailed them and they were nice and gave me a full refund and let me keep the hops. good. But my question is: is it normal to get centennial type instead of real centennial? On their website there is no clue they could be c-type: http://www.brewgadgets.com/p-764-centennial-us-hop-pellets-1-oz.aspx
Have i been a jerk to email them about it? Do you guys usually call the Vendor to make sure what kind of hops they are or you don't care?

I would think that if you ordered centennial hops, you should get centennal hops and not a substitute.
They were right to refund you.
You are not a jerk. They shouldn't have taken/processed your order without the hops available or in stock.

And I would be pissed to recieve a substitute. An email would be the least I would do.

umm i looked at the website, and it says centennial, but if what you received wasn't what you thought you ordered, then no. if you ordered a big Mac, and got something else you would go back and make a fuss about it. hops are no different. if you wanted centennial, and got something similar, then you didn't get what you paid for.

namyarb3 said:

I would think that if you ordered centennial hops, you should get centennal hops and not a substitute.
They were right to refund you.
You are not a jerk. They shouldn't have taken/processed your order without the hops available or in stock.

And I would be pissed to recieve a substitute. An email would be the least I would do.

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I agree...send what I've ordered or don't take my money.

OK, I'll bite. What are "centennial-type" hops? Did they send you a blend of other hops that are similar to centennial? Did they send you half a pound of some other hop? Or is this just a discrepancy in labeling?

If you didn't get what you ordered you were right to call them on it.

I can't imagine any company knowingly sending something other than what you ordered and expecting it to be OK.
Bad, bad business.

That is exactly the type of thing that will keep people from ordering from them.
Making it right after they are called on it doesn't make up for it.

If they couldn't fill the order they should have contacted you with offers of cancelling the order or substitution. Hopefully they would do that in time for you to shop elsewhere for what you wanted.

Double post. My bad.

daksin said:

OK, I'll bite. What are "centennial-type" hops? Did they send you a blend of other hops that are similar to centennial? Did they send you half a pound of some other hop? Or is this just a discrepancy in labeling?

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"Centennial-Type" is a HopUnion name for a pelletized hop blend made up of Cascade and *Columbus (sorry misspoke when I said Chinook, they all have "C"s!) which is designed to imitate Centennial. When in-demand hop varieties become scarce, HU will develop custom blends designed to imitate a specific hop, although I don't think you typically see them marketed directly as substitutes (or even necessarily for sale to homebrewers, I know for a fact that a few years ago there was a blend offered to professional breweries designed to imitate Simcoe, but I haven't ever seen it; I've heard rumors that Falconer's Flight is that blend and Zythos is the Amarillo blend substitute, although HopUnion doens't ever specify as such)

I know at least some sellers have balked at using the "Centennial-type" branding (probably due to the fact that it is not actually Centennial and sort of skirts the line of dishonesty and at the very least confusion).

Luckly for the buyer in this thread, this is the right time of year to pick up some of the new crop of Centennial which has been fairly recently pelleted. If you check the various websites around this forum you'll find plenty of places with ample availability of the 2012 crop.

Centennial is one of those weird hops that is public domain (since I believe it was developed by a public program) but also becomes scarce due to the fact its used pretty extensively in popular modern recipes i.e. hoppy IPAs that use a ton of hops.

do yourself a favor next time and buy your hops from farmhouse brewing. you could have gotten a full pound for what you paid for the half and it would have been right the first time

You did the right thing and so did they. No body here knows if it was shipped to you on purpose or some young kid working in the back of the store saw Centennial on a bag of hops and tossed it into your box. I see no reason for others to post how dishonest the store is unless you know what happened. I would've been upset if I got the wrong hops too, but they made it right and life goes on.

Centennial type is a 70/30 blend of cascade and columbus. When centennial ran out last year, this was the solution from hop union... although it was cheaper to just buy cascade and columbus and mix it yourself.

This should never be advertised as true centennial. The were right to give the refund, but they should change their website description.

Should have paid them in cash-type currency...like Monopoly money...

Cheers!

Backporchbrewery said:

Centennial type is a 70/30 blend of cascade and columbus. When centennial ran out last year, this was the solution from hop union... although it was cheaper to just buy cascade and columbus and mix it yourself.

This should never be advertised as true centennial. The were right to give the refund, but they should change their website description.

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I think it should go a step further and not be advertised as "Centennial-anything" at all. I think its kind of dishonest of HopUnion to market a blend as "Centennial-type" since its really not Centennial or the same "type" of hops in the least.

I have done my own 70/30 (Columbus/Cascade) blend for Centennial...not quite the same but not bad either. In fact I have heard some brewers actually prefer it over Centennial. After all some people say Centennial is just a "Super Cascade"...

Glynn said:

do yourself a favor next time and buy your hops from farmhouse brewing. you could have gotten a full pound for what you paid for the half and it would have been right the first time

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I like FarmhouseBrewing too, though recently discovered www.yakimavalleyhops.com, which sells half lbs of great hops for $5-8 with $5 flat rate shipping up to 4 lbs... rad.

I am confused why you live in LA and didn't just go to a local homebrew shop. There are several around which will give you similar prices for real, actual Centennial hops, especially when you consider the cost of shipping from a shop in Michigan.

Thank you everybody for your replies. I do have 2-3 LHBSs i could get my hops from, but they were all out of centennial back then. Apparently I was looking for centennial in the worst time of the year. I am pretty sure that back then I checked farmhouse as well. About brewgadget, I didn't want to complain about them, they were nice enough to give me the full refund and the hops. But yes, I am glad that the general consensus here is that I was right to not be happy with c-type hops. Also I totally agree with mooshimanx, the problem starts with Hop Union labeling a mix of 2 hops as Centennial, type or no type.

day_trippr said:

Should have paid them in cash-type currency...like Monopoly money...

Cheers!

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Man, totally agree with you too!

weirdboy said:

I am confused why you live in LA and didn't just go to a local homebrew shop. There are several around which will give you similar prices for real, actual Centennial hops, especially when you consider the cost of shipping from a shop in Michigan.

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Probably because once you factor in gas, traffic/time, and sales tax buying from the LHBS actually costs more. So thankful that my LHBS is only 3 miles away.....otherwise it would be all mail order for me.

I brewed a Waldo Lake kit from NB yesterday. It came with Centennial Type hops instead of Centennial hops. I just shrugged and threw them in the kettle. I don't have a baseline for this recipe, so I'm not too worried. I would be concerned if I specifically bought Centennial and was given a blend instead.

If I had gotten the wrong hops, I'd brew with them (at least if they're similar) - complain that I had to use the shipped hops since I had ordered them for a planned brew day and could not wait any longer. Then demand they send the right ones.

It might not be the nice thing, but sometimes you gotta be mean.

Onihige said:

If I had gotten the wrong hops, I'd brew with them (at least if they're similar) - complain that I had to use the shipped hops since I had ordered them for a planned brew day and could not wait any longer. Then demand they send the right ones.

It might not be the nice thing, but sometimes you gotta be mean.

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So, I'd call that complaining, then lying, then cheating. Perhaps it's not worth it for a baggie of hops. What is a man's integrity worth?

Regarding the OP's situation, I'd be very disappointed and likely wouldn't do business again with that company.

passedpawn said:

So, I'd call that complaining, then lying, then cheating. Perhaps it's not worth it for a baggie of hops. What is a man's integrity worth?

Regarding the OP's situation, I'd be very disappointed and likely wouldn't do business again with that company.

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I think I misunderstand you. How is that lying and cheating?

I ordered Centennial pellets from Midwest last week, they sent Centennial type. The site did not mention potential substitutions or the word "Type"

In a shining example of today's customer service they have opted to not respond to my inquiries on the matter and in a rock solid user driven rating system they decided to censor me and not approve my 3 star review that simply noted the hops were centennial type not centennial.

F those guys - Midwest will never see another dime from me

EDIT - my review finally appeared, they at least let that go.

jb1677 said:

I ordered Centennial pellets from Midwest last week, they sent Centennial type. The site did not mention potential substitutions or the word "Type"

In a shining example of today's customer service they have opted to not respond to my inquiries on the matter and in a rock solid user driven rating system they decided to censor me and not approve my 3 star review that simply noted the hops were centennial type not centennial.

F those guys - Midwest will never see another dime from me

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Issue a chargeback through your credit card company. That will get their attention.

Wow. That really sucks, ordered from them many times, never had a problem. In the future i'll just call the vendor ahead and make sure i'm getting the real stuff. And please, HOP UNION, don't make any citra-type or amarillo-type

passedpawn said:

So, I'd call that complaining, then lying, then cheating. Perhaps it's not worth it for a baggie of hops. What is a man's integrity worth?

Regarding the OP's situation, I'd be very disappointed and likely wouldn't do business again with that company.

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Sure it's complaining. That's what responsible consumers do - or else they have to constantly deal with companies that ship inferior products. If it's a lie or not depends on your situtation.

And I think simply not doing business there anymore is counter productive. They need to know first of all that they've made a mistake. Secondly not to make it again.

And like I said, my method is NOT the nice thing, but mistakes must hurt or there's no lesson to be learned. Shipping is crazy expensive here. The shipping is about as much as the friggin' hops.

And I'm not sure, but I think there are some regulations regarding selling stuff that's been sent back by a customer. Often they can't charge full price for it and have to mark that it's been sent back.

Also, I might be a mean and hardballing customer. But I also tend to make a policy of being forgetfull. No sense in holding grudges.

Onihige said:

Sure it's complaining. That's what responsible consumers do - or else they have to constantly deal with companies that ship inferior products. If it's a lie or not depends on your situtation.

And I think simply not doing business there anymore is counter productive. They need to know first of all that they've made a mistake. Secondly not to make it again.

And like I said, my method is NOT the nice thing, but mistakes must hurt or there's no lesson to be learned. Shipping is crazy expensive here. The shipping is about as much as the friggin' hops.

And I'm not sure, but I think there are some regulations regarding selling stuff that's been sent back by a customer. Often they can't charge full price for it and have to mark that it's been sent back.

Also, I might be a mean and hardballing customer. But I also tend to make a policy of being forgetfull. No sense in holding grudges.

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I get your point, and I also feel the need for justice - I've been in the same situation many times. But believe it, by far the most punitive action is posting a thread on a forum like this. Losing a few bucks of hops to a customer is nothing compared to bad PR on a huge enthusiast forum like this one.

Anyway, my point is simple: don't tell lies. How can one act indignant about being deceived, then turn around and deceive the company in retaliation?

Hammy71 said:

You did the right thing and so did they. No body here knows if it was shipped to you on purpose or some young kid working in the back of the store saw Centennial on a bag of hops and tossed it into your box. I see no reason for others to post how dishonest the store is unless you know what happened. I would've been upset if I got the wrong hops too, but they made it right and life goes on.

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...and when it was all over they "made good" and you got you Hops for free.

DPBISME said:

...and when it was all over they "made good" and you got you Hops for free.

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That's the key. You can't expect any retailer not to make mistakes. What separates the good from the bad is how they respond to the mistakes.

(assuming a basic level of competence in the first place, that is...)

JonW said:

Issue a chargeback through your credit card company. That will get their attention.

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I paid with a gift card, not possible.

First and last order from Midwest Supplies for me

If you've only tried email, perhaps try their online chat widget. That was how I got help when an item was left out of an order. If you emailed them in the last few days, I'd cut them a little slack since they may be floored with holiday weekend orders.

zeg said:

If you've only tried email, perhaps try their online chat widget. That was how I got help when an item was left out of an order. If you emailed them in the last few days, I'd cut them a little slack since they may be floored with holiday weekend orders.

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I used their web form to submit my concern, it was sent on 11/16. I have not had good luck with the web chat, their site seems to be flakey - like right now, looks to be completely down.

Bummer. My experience with Midwest has been good, except for one order when a thermometer strip was left out. They sent it out when I let them know. Doesn't sound like you got off to a good start with them, though, and I can't blame you for not wanting to return.