I ended up ordering from MoreBeer after the NB debacle.
Northern Brewer - Buyer Beware
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That’s good to know. I’ve never heard of BrewHound.. I’m about an hour and a half from FW, so that may be a good option in the future.
At the time of the InBev acquisition I pondered if it could be one move in a conspiracy to crush or diminish the HB market.
Buy the big stores, help them grow resulting in the small LHBS whithering, then squeeze the life (and value) out of the big store while pointing to the failure of the small stores as evidence the the market is drying up.
Obviously this falls into the category of "conspiracy theory", but isn't it possible.
I'm not saying that is what is happening, but it is one reason we have anti-trust laws.
Problem is, our "hobby" market is probably too small to get the attention of regulators.
The defense to that tactic is the proliferation of other successful independent stores.
In that case the market changes but doesn't dry-up.
agree whole heartedly, wich is why my LHBS store, is a feed store.. my spidy sense got to tingling when i heard InBev's 'creative marketing' division bought NB.... i'm like ****, better start malting my own because i know drug dealers are power mad, well... yeah i saw it comeing, and still am doing my best to fight, keep the chains off me...
What does 50 pounds of barley cost from a feed store? About $30? I assume you have to wash it, (not quite human food grade when you buy it but close) but not a problem because you'll be wetting it for sprouting anyway.agree whole heartedly, wich is why my LHBS store, is a feed store.. my spidy sense got to tingling when i heard InBev's 'creative marketing' division bought NB.... i'm like ****, better start malting my own because i know drug dealers are power mad, well... yeah i saw it comeing, and still am doing my best to fight, keep the chains off me...
6-row, was costing me $13 for many years 2016-2021, now last time i bought a bag it was $23...i figure the devil is desperate.
and yeah i don't really wash it per-se, it's involved in the process of sprouting it, i actually 'wash' it every day for 3-4 days to keep it wet to sprout...
i don't quite understand what about things that make you feel funny gives the devil a foot in the door, but i damn try and slam every time i see them! ain't a nice guy!
Its a shame actually. I too ordered from them about a month ago. No email confirming purchase or when it would be shipped. After about two weeks I sent an email asking what was up......within an hour I got an email saying my order had been shipped. The next day got an email saying they were sorry for the delay.
Something is amiss for sure.....
Something is amiss for sure.....
There's a glitch in the Matrix for them. If it was always a staffing and employee issue, then literally everyone in the industry would be taking a week or two to ship orders. Plus, it's been at least 6 months (judging by the other threads I've seen), and they haven't been able to make any adjustments. I have a feeling the investment group that bought NB and subsequent brands thought they were gonna be raking in cash and had no idea how running an online retailer works.
I'm guessing they fired most of the employees, or ran them off with bad management, and now they can't hire replacements because they're not paying enough -- also people have gotten used to working from home or not working at all (just collecting government assistance) and some jobs like warehouse work have to be done onsite and in-person.
Long-running problems with "staffing", I always blame the management. They are paying too little, or poor benefits, or just generally treating the employees like crap so they have high turnover. But if they pay a decent wage, they might have to raise prices and customers will go elsewhere. It's a conundrum. But I'm also hedging my bet here a little because people have gotten lazier since the start of COVID.
I was about to hit Send and I just thought of this; they might have tried to implement just-in-time inventory with little or no warehousing, and that doesn't work when supply chains are disrupted. But you'd think they'd have figured that out by now
Long-running problems with "staffing", I always blame the management. They are paying too little, or poor benefits, or just generally treating the employees like crap so they have high turnover. But if they pay a decent wage, they might have to raise prices and customers will go elsewhere. It's a conundrum. But I'm also hedging my bet here a little because people have gotten lazier since the start of COVID.
I was about to hit Send and I just thought of this; they might have tried to implement just-in-time inventory with little or no warehousing, and that doesn't work when supply chains are disrupted. But you'd think they'd have figured that out by now
BrewnWKopperKat
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MN (Aug 2022): 2% unemployment rate: https://mn.gov/deed/data/current-econ-highlights/county-unemployment.jsp
MN is doing quite well on the unemployment statistics. And so it is probably hard for them to find people.
BUT - by now, that problem could have been fixed. I find it hard to believe it's anything other than an unwillingness to pay people what it takes. And when you're making as much money as they are it's a bit hard to comprehend the pay thing.
BUT - by now, that problem could have been fixed. I find it hard to believe it's anything other than an unwillingness to pay people what it takes. And when you're making as much money as they are it's a bit hard to comprehend the pay thing.
BrewnWKopperKat
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Teufelhunde
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^^THIS^^
From my past experience being in companies that have been bought by LARGE investment groups, one of the first things they change is the management compensation. They base their compensation in part, or wholly, on NET profit made by that department/business. The manager has an incentive to hire people for .25/hour if he can get them(and if it were legal). If he has to pay a proper wage to get people to work, he is literally taking money out of his own pocket.
YMMV
Lon
Dancy
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Perhaps, but we’ve all been speculating about this for many weeks (months?) now and as far as I can tell, none of us knows the actual facts behind their issues. It doesn’t make sense to me they let these shipping issues go on for sooo long now if it’s just a matter of paying the help more money — particularly if they really “…are making as much money as they are….”.
I don’t doubt nor disagree with the labor situation, and everyone here has made good points. Personally, I switched jobs from a high-demand trades job to a counter job at a heavy equipment rental place in large part because of the wages and part due to the physical demands of the work.
I don’t blame anyone for making a move out of necessity in today’s economy. To the point of some in this thread, my new employer wanted to match my pay after I explicitly said I didn’t want to make a lateral move in my interview. I negotiated a better rate, but the fact that they didn’t want to pay me says more about the state of employer pay on a larger scale than it does about a single employer. My boss didn’t want to pay me because it took off of her bottom line and therefore her commissions.
Point is, it’s hard to find good people who WANT to work. When you do, PAY THEM. Granted, this may not be NB’s issue, but if it’s the same excuse they’ve been using, then something needs to change.
I don’t blame anyone for making a move out of necessity in today’s economy. To the point of some in this thread, my new employer wanted to match my pay after I explicitly said I didn’t want to make a lateral move in my interview. I negotiated a better rate, but the fact that they didn’t want to pay me says more about the state of employer pay on a larger scale than it does about a single employer. My boss didn’t want to pay me because it took off of her bottom line and therefore her commissions.
Point is, it’s hard to find good people who WANT to work. When you do, PAY THEM. Granted, this may not be NB’s issue, but if it’s the same excuse they’ve been using, then something needs to change.
BrewnWKopperKat
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Delta Brewing is my choice, I shopped both NB and Morebeer one of them won't apply free shipping to 50lb bags of grain. Went to Delta and got what I wanted and received in 2 days free shipping via Fedex
Edit: Shipping was UPS
Edit: Shipping was UPS
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Steveruch
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If you order five 10 pound bags from Morebeer that qualifies for free shipping.
My girlfriend just got me a $150 giftcard to NB 
My girlfriend just got me a $150 giftcard to NB
So use if for something nice that you can wait a month to get.
I have a difficult time with patience during fermentation, let alone waiting for ingredients to arrive lol.
PCABrewing
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NB did not cite Supply Chain as a reason for my order delay.
They only said labor was an issue.
The reason I messaged them was to ascertain if the delay was a back-order. They said no.
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PCABrewing
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I made the switch from a skilled trade job to corporate America many years ago. Reason initially was being fed-up with the BS.
Turns out the new role(s) in corporate were even more BS but they paid me well enough to tolerate it.
Eventually the needs evolved and thus the jobs changed as well. But if I wanted to stay gainfully employed I evolved.
But I never did, and still don't think I was under-paid in the blue-collar role. I just developed newer and more valuable skills as needed and qualified for better pay.
Today it seems the labor force wants a job they can do from home that pays enough to buy the latest hi-tech gadgets.
Problem is workers need to show extraordinary value to get extraordinary salary.
Were in a time of change for labor and it is going to get worse before it gets better.
I hear ya. I don’t think I was underpaid in HVAC, but my pay rate hadn’t changed in nearly 3 years which included this most recent round of inflation. Our profit margins (in dollars) were higher and higher with the increased cost of equipment and supplies, but none of that ever reached the employees.
My wife and I live a frugal, conservative lifestyle and it was getting hard to buy groceries with both of us working full-time. That, and as an MBA, I was WAY overqualified to be an HVAC technician despite some of the backend business stuff I did.
All to say, you’re right. People wanna work from home and earn big bucks, but those jobs are few and far between (I tried). I’m glad I made the move I did when I did. It’s been good so far, and I get to use the skills I learned to be useful around the machines I work around now.
Just an update for all of you following along.. I ordered from MoreBeer Saturday, and got an email a little bit ago saying my order has shipped! Even if it gets here Thursday or Friday, I’m still brewing this weekend.
NB, on the other hand, still hasn’t responded to my request to cancel my order.
NB, on the other hand, still hasn’t responded to my request to cancel my order.
Teufelhunde
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Morebeer is the real deal....my go to
My girlfriend just got me a $150 giftcard to NB
sell it in the homebrew classifieds! lol
Well said
Whisky River
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I can’t believe how they are running their business, it wouldn’t be a big deal of it was a one time thing but it’s every time. Each of the 4 orders I have placed with them have been delayed. Each time they had a different excuse.
In April 7 days to process the order, they said a machinery malfunction delayed processing grain orders. Ok seemed reasonable.
In June 11 days to process the order, they said unforeseen events brought down wharehouse operations and they were 2-3 days behind. Yeah right.
By August they didn’t even provide an explanation for 10 days to process an order for 1 piece of equipment.
This time in October after 7 days I got a response saying they were experiencing challenges and delays and were processing orders from 2 weeks ago. So there was no way I could make the brew day I had planned for 2 weeks after I placed my order. That was it for me, Missing another brew day I planned 2 weeks in advance was too much, I canceled the NB order and made it through Moorbeer. Shipped the next day and will be here before the end of the week.
Brew day saved and lesson learned.
catalanotte
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I think we need a service than can walk into a LHBS, shop for someone and ship. Kind of like Instacart and Shipt combined for brewers or other specialty shops. Probably cost prohibitive, but given the dissatisfaction level with other options, who knows...
Placed an order last night. I text them, and let them know it's for my birthday, so maybe they'll push it through faster lol. YEAH RIGHT
*Edit - Received a text back saying it's scheduled to ship 10/17, so fingers crossed!
*Edit - Received a text back saying it's scheduled to ship 10/17, so fingers crossed!
I can understand a need there if people were having trouble with an online retailer that has completely monopolized the homebrew supply market in the entire country. While the NB/Midwest/Austin/AiH corporate machine is pretty large, it's by no means even close to a monopoly. Either way, people need to put pressure on them until it hurts (by shopping elsewhere).
I recently forgot to add something to an order from MoreBeer and called Customer Support a few hours after I hit submit.
Not only were they able to add to the order (which is impressive given that they usually get stuff to me in two days) they also said "You didn't add the 15% off coupon we have up on our site. I put that on the order. You'll be getting a refund of $X."
Such a refreshing interaction.
They're awesome. Sucks they don't carry Mecca Grade malt though. I've fallen in love with Mecca.
Teufelhunde
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Maybe let them know how much you like it. You never know, they may look at it and decided to try carrying it and see if it sells....
Dancy
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Email I received today after emailing MW yesterday to inquire about my order:
”We apologize for the delay! We have been really swamped lately, and a bit shorthanded as well, and the result is that we are running behind schedule, particularly on the grain-room orders. We're all working hard to get caught back up, and get everyone's orders out the door, as quickly as we can. I see your order is shipping today, so you'll have it tomorrow. Thanks again, have a good day! -Mike, Midwest Supplies CS”
As mentioned before, their issues have been going on for a relatively long time now so customers are losing (or have lost) their patience. I’m afraid MW and NB are causing long term damage to their business.
”We apologize for the delay! We have been really swamped lately, and a bit shorthanded as well, and the result is that we are running behind schedule, particularly on the grain-room orders. We're all working hard to get caught back up, and get everyone's orders out the door, as quickly as we can. I see your order is shipping today, so you'll have it tomorrow. Thanks again, have a good day! -Mike, Midwest Supplies CS”
As mentioned before, their issues have been going on for a relatively long time now so customers are losing (or have lost) their patience. I’m afraid MW and NB are causing long term damage to their business.
BrewnWKopperKat
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Take a look around. Nearly every business in the country has supply chain/covid/labor shortage issues, and now we are looking at a recession, plus war in a heavy grain producing region.
These companies are distributors of what are essentially specialty “food” products from around the world if you will and low volume, hand produced brewing equipment. It should come to nobody’s surprise there are issues filling orders.
Most companies like this are run by equity managers that combine companies to make the whole machine run more efficiently or to cut internal duplication, expand supply chains, etc. similar thing happened to Cabella’s and Bass Pro Shops. They were brought together by equity managers. Then oftentimes these companies are sold off for profit by equity managers who usually plan an exit in about 5 years.
Anyway, I’d lighten up on the expectations. If these companies could sell you stuff faster, they would. We’re just going through a difficult time. It will improve at some point, just be happy you can source some of these items.
These companies are distributors of what are essentially specialty “food” products from around the world if you will and low volume, hand produced brewing equipment. It should come to nobody’s surprise there are issues filling orders.
Most companies like this are run by equity managers that combine companies to make the whole machine run more efficiently or to cut internal duplication, expand supply chains, etc. similar thing happened to Cabella’s and Bass Pro Shops. They were brought together by equity managers. Then oftentimes these companies are sold off for profit by equity managers who usually plan an exit in about 5 years.
Anyway, I’d lighten up on the expectations. If these companies could sell you stuff faster, they would. We’re just going through a difficult time. It will improve at some point, just be happy you can source some of these items.
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