Brewers Hardware????

Anyone ordered from them lately? I ordered some parts one month ago and never recieved anything more than the initial auto correspondence from brewers hardware and from paypal. Package never shipped. Online tracking still shows it is in processing and emails to derrin have gone unanswered. Is everything all right over there? Is he alive, injured, vacationing, etc. Anyone else having issues?

Sounds like you did everything you could to contact him; I'd probably but a stop payment on my credit card and see if that wakes him up. Otherwise, I'd take my biz elsewhere.

I ordered a second sanke fermenter kit about a month ago and recieved it quickly. My guess is he had it built and ready to go already. He's probably waiting on something in your order to arrive, but, it would be nice to hear in the meantime.

Good luck,

Beach

I also have had issues reaching Derrin. I emailed several times over the last month to return a faulty temperature sensor. I never got a response and gave up after the third email.

Like you said, I'm not sure if he just taking a vacation/break or is there is something more serious.

I've ordered from him in the past without fail. Quick delivery and open communication. I put 2 emails into him last week. Haven't heard back. I'm not going to stop payment as I di expect it to ship. I just thought he was injured or something ....seriously. hopefully I find out soon

Anyone hear anything? I put an order in 10 days ago thinking I'd have the parts to brew while I was on winter break. Here I am wondering what's going on and found this thread. I just emailed last night to see if I could get any info and I'm waiting for a response. It seems like I might be waiting a while though......I really want to order the parts from there with the full bore 1/2" nipples but if I can't get the stuff for three months I'll take my biz elsewhere.

He never emailed me back and I don't know the status of my order which was placed novmber 15. The only thing I know is that it is still "processing" and I haven't received them yet. It says on the website certain parts take a few weeks. Im on week 5 now.

BucksPA said:

He never emailed me back and I don't know the status of my order which was placed novmber 15. The only thing I know is that it is still "processing" and I haven't received them yet. It says on the website certain parts take a few weeks. Im on week 5 now.

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I'm not sure what you are waiting for here. Its been 5 weeks, what you are going to do? Wait another 5? 10?

If it is late, if you have emailed them and haven't heard back; cut your losses, stop payment on your credit card and order from someone else. If you order today you'll probably have your stuff by the weekend.

Im patient. My setup is fully operational. Im more concerned he died than my $30 order processing and just seeing if I was the only one. Apparently im not. Broadbill, if you're unhappy with what were saying here, then I suggest you don't order from there.

I think we agree open communication with customers is lacking here. A phone number would be helpful

Communication was a problem when I ordered over $300 worth if stuff. No updates, nothing until I hounded him through the site and here.

The products are nice and well built, but he was waiting on something to complete my order, waiting like weeks, and he never told me anything about it and held up my entire order for two items.

He then sent me $45 or $60 worth I parts I did t order or pay for. When I sent him an email about it, it still took him at least a week to respond that he was going to send me a prepaid box to ship them back.

I'm happy with the quality, but the lack of communication was frustrating.

Weird. My email yesterday was about canceling the order. Just now after I posted that first response I got a "items shipped" email with a tracking number.

Came in the mail yesterday. He's alive after all

Now their website is down.

Mine came in today. I couldn't be happier with the parts but I would have liked to know what was going on.

I waited 2 months for a stir plate, it was on back order when I ordered it so I expected 1 month, not 2. My SS bulkhead leaks and I'm just not motivated enough to ship it back for him to re-run threads on it...oh well, I've switched sources which is too bad because I wanted to support him.

What the heck is going on with vendor communication recently. It seems like things were going great for at least a year for all the active vendors (aside from the kegkits debacle). This sounds like the 3rd time in a short while people were having some real trouble getting parts or an explanation as to whey there weren't getting parts. Granted, some of this stuff is highly custom, labor intensive, and takes time but...

I've had great success with bobby over at brewhardware.com. fast shipment, great customer service.

Bobby_M said:

What the heck is going on with vendor communication recently. It seems like things were going great for at least a year for all the active vendors (aside from the kegkits debacle). This sounds like the 3rd time in a short while people were having some real trouble getting parts or an explanation as to whey there weren't getting parts. Granted, some of this stuff is highly custom, labor intensive, and takes time but...

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The problem is there is no explaination that there is a lead time or something is custom made to order. It appears on their site to be in stock and ready to ship and when you don't see your stuff or hear anything from the vendor, you start to get irritated.

I understand there is a lead time for custom pieces. I didn't know it took 10 days to put a 90 degree bend in a 11" piece of tubing though. It wasn't so much that I was an irritated customer just a confused customer. I understand busy, I'm a 18 credit a semester student for the last three semesters working two part time jobs. I just expect some kind of notification when I'm spending $60 on what are mostly non-custom items. If he was out of town I would have been happy and content knowing my order would be delayed a week or more.

smokinghole said:

I understand there is a lead time for custom pieces. I didn't know it took 10 days to put a 90 degree bend in a 11" piece of tubing though. It wasn't so much that I was an irritated customer just a confused customer. I understand busy, I'm a 18 credit a semester student for the last three semesters working two part time jobs. I just expect some kind of notification when I'm spending $60 on what are mostly non-custom items. If he was out of town I would have been happy and content knowing my order would be delayed a week or more.

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That's what I was getting at. I ordered two custom items and the rest of my $300 order was basic parts - couplings, tri clover washers and clamps, ferrules, etc. The lack of communication is what's irritating when you email someone asking for an update on your order/money and you get no response for a week at a time.

Oooh you're saying he has not specified anywhere on the site what is custom made to order and what is off the shelf...I get ya.

I'm having issues now too. I received a tracking number on my order, which also says it was received. I have neighbors downstairs who work from home who get all my packages, and they say it never showed up.

I've emailed two time with no response so far. Asking for a refund at this point. I know mail isn't his problem, but I at least expect a response to an email.

Taking my business back to MoreBeer.

I had a shipment go missing and turns out the leasing office people were just stupid and misplaced it for two weeks. Don't blame the vendor for bad delivery.

BTW ordered a few times from BH and really appreciated the responsiveness. I was able to edit an order and upgrade a part and pay after it was delivered, good customer service from my experiences.

I don't blame the vendor for bad delivery. I never received my stuff. I get stuff delivered all the time, and I never have issues, because I have someone take delivery.

I blame the vendor for not returning multiple emails to try to find out what happened. I would have been happy to reorder and have him pick up the shipping if he had offered. I think for me to buy the items twice would have been plenty fair. The point is that he ignored me completely, and by the looks of this thread, I'm not the only one.

My wife bought me a bunch of stuff from him for Xmas, and I would guess we've easily spent $300 in the last few months. A cursory reply is the least I should be able to expect.

Again, I said I would have been willing to re-buy the stuff, he just ignored me.

Maybe I'm unreasonable. Whatever.

Hi Guys,

First off: My sincerest apologies for those of you that I've let experience my own growing pains. Brewers Hardware is not running the way I want it to be, my communication sucks right now and I'm working to fix it. Thanks to all of you; I've been extremely busy and I've let my customer service that originally got me here slide to an unacceptable level.

Second: Thank you very much for your concern for my well being. One thing I took from this thread wasn't the typical "hey did this a-hole take my money and bolt?" thread but "hey is this guy OK?". Thanks for the benefit of the doubt!

So what am I doing about it? Many of you know that I've been a one man show. Well, I've hired another homebrewer/beer geek full time to pull and ship orders; a warehouse manager if you will. Once he's trained, this will get me back welding and back behind the keyboard. He's been helping here and there for a little while now but he'll be full time in 2 more weeks. ( I got him to leave his other job by promising to teach him to brew all grain on the clock. It's the best perk I can offer, thank goodness he likes beer.) I've also invested a substantial amount in inventory, specifically in the last couple months and particularly in the little things that always seem to hold orders up. I had to purchase 2 years of inventory to make the math work, but all of my temperature sensors are now being soldered and epoxy potted at a local cable manufacturing house. (inventory starting to arrive next week) I've also made some tough choices to drop a few items I was making in house and all custom work until we get our arms back around the simple bread and butter orders.

Thanks everyone for your support, thanks for your patience, sorry for allowing my company to start to suck and especially sorry to anyone I've caused grief.

-Derrin
-Brewers Hardware

If I still owe you a response or you have an unresolved issue, please email me again, I'll get it handled asap. I wish I still had time for the forums but I don't so email is still the best way to communciate and thanks Joe for bringing this thread to my attention.

This new person should have an account here that everyone is aware of. If he is going to run the show, he should be able to make sure that threads like these do not go unanswered for so long.

Derrin said:

Brewers Hardware is not running the way I want it to be, my communication sucks right now and I'm working to fix it. Thanks to all of you; I've been extremely busy and I've let my customer service that originally got me here slide to an unacceptable level.

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When I see posts like this from vendors, they immediately get added to my list of companies I'll purchase from.

Derrin, not sure if you'll be on here to get this, but I'm glad to hear things are going well, even through the pains of growth. I've been very satisfied with the quality and craftsmanship of the parts I ordered from you. I'm glad you're doing everything possible to improve the customer's experience. Communication was the only thing I had to "complain" about and I'm happy to see you're working on it to improve your business and it's awesome to see a vendor handle some tough criticism well.

I have ordered a ton of stuff from Brewer's Hardware & they've always been awesome. I ordered some just last week - told Derrin I could really use it before the following weekend to finish something on my brewery and bam it was there. He's always replied to my e-mail. On occasions, I've phoned and spoken to him, had great advice about things I'm trying to do. Almost all the fittings on my HERMS system are from BH, not to mention a trub filter and more. Their stuff is primo quality and a very reasonable price. If you're not getting any joy, you must have cut him off in traffic or something - I can't say enough good things about BH!

I'd be wary of this vendor. Actually, I'd recommend ordering elsewhere if at all possible.

I ordered $170 worth of probes, and M8 connectors on 1/25/2012. None were listed as back-ordered or were custom in any way.

My credit card was charged immediately on 1/25. I emailed them a week later as the order was still stuck in "processing". I did receive an email the next day stating that my order would go out "next week".

Well, it's still in "processing", and two more emails have thus far gone unanswered.

Buyer beware....

Michael

As a follow up to my previous posts, Derrin did get in touch with me, and sent me new stuff.

I will rescind my comment that I won't order from him again, as he did go out of his way to make it up to me, and the equipment really is high quality.

+1 for Brewers Hardware. Ordered stuff the night of 2/10 and added an item the morning of 2/13. Emailed Derrin and asked if he could combine the shipping and he did with no problems. My delivery arrived on 2/15. I was amazed how fast it shipped. And it's all great products.
Derrin, please open the storefront you mentioned in your email. I'll make the trip from San Diego every other month for supplies.

Brewers hardware has great stuff if you are willing to wait 3+ weeks to make it right. I have ordered from them twice. Once it did not ship out fir two weeks and when I emailed him he said it was back ordered but there was no email to advise of the same. The second time I received the parts in record time and was really happy but found out I received the wrong parts and did not get the replacement parts until 2 weeks later. Needless to say I wont be ordering again unless I don't care when I will receive my items.

Although my experience isn't extremely recent (about a year ago), I will say that I am extremely happy with the quality of the items I bought from BH (a RIMS tube and some assorted tri-clamp stuff). I do remember that it took a while to get, but it was only a couple weeks, and once I got it, it was way nicer than anything else I was able to find or make at the time.

I would definitely place another order with them.

I placed a order Sunday night, and got a email with shipping confirmation today (Wed). I will report back when it arrives.

Just ordered on Monday and my stuff was shipped promptly (ordered stuff from Bobby too on same day, minutes apart, that ones still on route ; 2 x full port 5/8" OD 1/2" SS barbs, 90 SS street elbow and weld-less bulkhead). Here's the USPS info.

Delivered, February 16, 2012, 9:39 am, HOLYOKE, MA 01040
Sorting Complete, February 16, 2012, 9:35 am, HOLYOKE, MA 01040
Arrival at Post Office, February 16, 2012, 7:55 am, HOLYOKE, MA 01040
Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 15, 2012
Depart USPS Sort Facility, February 14, 2012, ANAHEIM, CA 92899
Processed at USPS Origin Sort Facility, February 14, 2012, 5:43 pm, ANAHEIM, CA 92899
Accepted at USPS Origin Sort Facility, February 14, 2012, 4:28 pm, ORANGE, CA 9286

I got a 2" tri clover camp, 2" tri clover gasket, 2" tri clover to 1/2" NPT, 2 x 1/2" SS ball valve and 10' silicone tubing. I don't have the package in hand as it's at work. So we'll see if it's the correct stuff.

I just ordered with them. Recieved the shipment in 4 days.

I was the guy that emailed Derrin a couple weeks ago making sure that (A) he was still alive and (B) making him aware of this thread.

A buddy and I were each ordering up a RIMS tube from him and before I sent a significant amount of money over, I wanted to make sure he was still around and responding.

I'm happy to report both RIMS tubes showed up within their expected timeframes and the quality is as great as all the previous items I've purchased from him. His business is probably going through a bit of growing pains but I still recommend him as a vendor.

I ordered a RIMs tube (nothing special) on the 2-12 and haven't heard a peep. The site said that three day expected shipments on everything as long as they didn't have a certain coupler (Mine didn't).