Midwest Supplies

[PJoyce85]

they won't become a brewmaster's warehouse. this is a temporary thing with Midwest.

I agree.

A little heads up and some communication from them would be nice, though.

 

[CooperBrew]

I ordered from them about 2 weeks ago. My order shipped within a day and arrived on time in good order. I order some soda making supplies, an extract beer kit and some sanitizers.

 

[PJoyce85]

I ordered from them about 2 weeks ago. My order shipped within a day and arrived on time in good order. I order some soda making supplies, an extract beer kit and some sanitizers.

Apparently the problem is with grains.

 

[drakerebel]

From my short-lived experiences with Midwest, I've chalked them up to the Wal-mart of brewstores. Prices are cheap, customer service is meager at best, quality of product/order should not be 100% relied upon.

I feel like I roll the dice when placing an order there, imo. Of my 3 orders, they've messed up twice. I'll take Northern Brewer.

 

[midwestsupplies]

Hey Guys,

I am very sorry for the trouble. We are currently in the process of expanding our warehouse. There have been some unforeseen complications along the way, as there are with any major move, and that has slowed us down considerably. However, we are working through the weekend to try and bring things back on track.

Please let me assure you that this is not the way that Midwest Supplies generally operates, nor is it the way we will operate in the future. For those of you that have attempted to reach out to our CS department with little success, please understand that they are doing their best to reach everyone. However, there are many customer contacts coming in, and that is slowing the response rate.

Again, I am very sorry for the trouble. We understand this delay is unacceptable. We are doing, and will continue to do, everything we can to make it right with our valued customers.

Cheers,

Nick @ Midwest.

 

[gwapogorilla]

Hey Nick, I just spent over 10 minutes on the phone....WAITING to place and order. I was #2 on the wait list for that long...finally decided I was getting to old prop the phone up any longer, so I hung up.
I looked into using the on line order form too. But, I went to spend some of those points I have racked up, and it incorrectly adds them up. Instead of having $30 credit coming, it only gave me $21 and change.

Hope you get things straightened out. I like your selection, but I want service too.

 

[oneandahalfshepherds]

My sight glass showed up broken

 

[BrewerBear]

My sight glass showed up broken

OK did you bother calling them or sending them an email?

 

[oneandahalfshepherds]

Of course i did they replaced it but the point is that it arrived broken because it was poorly packed. No insulation just thrown on top of a bag of grain. I was disappointed with the way it arrived not with how it was handled thereafter

Edit: truth be told they did a solid job of replacing it, however it all could have been avoided was my main point

 

[PerfectD3]

Of course i did they replaced it but the point is that it arrived broken because it was poorly packed. No insulation just thrown on top of a bag of grain. I was disappointed with the way it arrived not with how it was handled thereafter

Of my three orders with them, two of them were very poorly packed. The one that came in packed properly, they didn't ship the other half of (intermediate brewery's kit). I have since decided to go elsewhere.

 

[Chug]

Of course i did they replaced it but the point is that it arrived broken because it was poorly packed. No insulation just thrown on top of a bag of grain. I was disappointed with the way it arrived not with how it was handled thereafter

Edit: truth be told they did a solid job of replacing it, however it all could have been avoided was my main point

You wanna talk about poor packaging? My last rather large order from them included liquid yeast plus an ice pack. They included both, but they were seperate...just sorta tossed into the box.

Not to mention items were omitted all together. I will say though, customer service was more than satisfactory and sent my missing items promptly and agreed with me that the ice pack situation wasn't exactly ideal.

 

[brewpood]

When they sold me my first brewing supplies and kit, the person in the store patiently and thoroughly described the whole process. They were great about handling a return when I changed my mind, and checked to make sure I bought the right pH strips when I told them I wanted to be sure my Starsan was at the right concentration. I called to ask a nervous newbie question before discovering this forum, and got accurate, helpful advice from yet another smart employee who was clearly also an avid home brewer. This is leagues beyond the customer service you would get at any Walmart.

I trust them and will continue to shop there. I am not saying that others don't have examples of poor service, but I have no doubt they will iron out these problems. If you go to the store, you will see that they are real people, not a corporate behemoth, and they try their best to do a very good job for each customer. And no, I am not related to anybody there.

 

[amandabab]

In the past I have always had good luck with midwest.
I uses them very little now. Only when they have some shiny thing that I must have that they are the only one that carries it.

Hmm, that reminds me I need a couple new anti-splash 9" funnels

Their service is always good but their shipping arrangement and my location is usually a no-go.

 

[how1]

I have always had great service with Midwest. I placed an order last Sunday night and have been wondering why my order hasn't showed up yet. It has always gotten here in 3 or 4 days. I was going to call them tomorrow, but now I understand the problem. Now I can RDWHAHB.

 

[Ridire]

If problems are recent , cut them a break. Moving a warehouse is a crazy logistical venture. I've ordered from them once. No problems. I ordered again this week...if there's a problem with this order, I understand...so long as it doesn't happen again a month or two from now.

 

[PJoyce85]

Hey Guys,

I am very sorry for the trouble. We are currently in the process of expanding our warehouse. There have been some unforeseen complications along the way, as there are with any major move, and that has slowed us down considerably. However, we are working through the weekend to try and bring things back on track.

Please let me assure you that this is not the way that Midwest Supplies generally operates, nor is it the way we will operate in the future. For those of you that have attempted to reach out to our CS department with little success, please understand that they are doing their best to reach everyone. However, there are many customer contacts coming in, and that is slowing the response rate.

Again, I am very sorry for the trouble. We understand this delay is unacceptable. We are doing, and will continue to do, everything we can to make it right with our valued customers.

Cheers,

Nick @ Midwest.

Thanks for the post, Nick.

I didn't start this thread to bash MWS, but to see if others have been waiting as long as I have (2 weeks, now) and to hopefully get someone on here from MWS to give an update.

It's coming up on almost 3 years that I have been shopping with them (almost exclusively) and I must say, I have been very pleased. From extract to all grain, my ingredients have always been fresh and my equipment packed superbly (got 4 glass carboys shipped APO and not a single scratch). MWS is one of the few companies that will ship APO (Morebeer is the other) and promptly returns my sometimes rather large over payment on shipping due to the USPS calculating system.

I understand things like this happen and expanding the warehouse will help better serve a growing customer base. I must say though, I was rather surprised, with your near perfect customer service track record (at least with me), that nothing was mentioned about this renovation earlier. Once again, not trying to complain, but a mention on one of your various social media accounts would have been appropriate and much appreciated rather than waiting 1.5 weeks wondering what's up with my order before finally deciding to contact CS.

I hope everything is up and running soon so you guys can continue with your great service.

Any way to get an update sometime so I can know when to expect my order to ship? I don't want to slow down the CS department even more than it already is during this situation, but would like to know. The APO mail situation isn't ideal for yeast, so I like to check my mail box everyday when I am expecting my order so I can get the yeast into the fridge ASAP.

Thanks for everything, past and future,

 

[Biogrove]

I just started brewing in January. My 1st 3 kits were from Midwest and I was advocating for them to my co-workers who were using Northern or Austin Homebrew Supply or a LHBS. Very good packaging a shipping, plus great instructions for a newbie. However, the shipping has been expensive and I've recently felt they weren't my type of supplier since getting multiple emails about "expiring points". Hell, I just started buying from them within the last 5 months and my points were expiring? Who needs nagging points? Not me, this is not airline miles for free magazines or whatever. I've been buying from AHS of late with great satisfaction and my LHBS is getting more of my business as well since I've started doing mostly mini-mash. They seem to have a good business model and I hope they get back on top of things soon. We sure enjoyed the brews we did from them. And, if they have what I need I'll certainly buy from them again. I will not badmouth them to anyone that asks. But, they would not be my first recommendation either. YMMV

Edit - I'm on my 9th batch since January and have bought brew kettles, carboys, misc. stuff all from various vendors that have given me excellent service.

 

[unionrdr]

I ordered my brewing/bottling stuff 4/25 & nick did e-mail me yesterday about the situation. This happened two months in a row. But this one's taking longer. won't be in till Tuesday the tracking says. Hoping for Monday morning. Was going to brew on today's holiday. The refunded my shipping,but went from Fed-Ex down to UPS. I'll just have to wait some more. I realize this is a tough situation & they have been great in the past. They even got my stuff here with Fed-Ex in two days before. So I'll order from them again. Just hope they get back on track soon.

 

[PJoyce85]

I ordered my brewing/bottling stuff 4/25 & nick did e-mail me yesterday about the situation. This happened two months in a row. But this one's taking longer. won't be in till Tuesday the tracking says. Hoping for Monday morning. Was going to brew on today's holiday. The refunded my shipping,but went from Fed-Ex down to UPS. I'll just have to wait some more. I realize this is a tough situation & they have been great in the past. They even got my stuff here with Fed-Ex in two days before. So I'll order from them again. Just hope they get back on track soon.

Man, I ordered mine on the 22nd and I haven't heard a thing

Edit: just got off the phone with them and it actually shipped on Wednesday which is the day I talked to them. Whew. Thanks for getting this sorted out MWS!!!

 

[Calichusetts]

I have several experiences of amazing customer service from midwest. Out of maybe 50 orders, only once was something broken or mixed up. They corrected it immediately.

One time I placed an order after they were closed, then realized I forgot a grain. Called them as they opened the next day and they had already packaged it. Shipping was already $12 so I asked if they could just add it in, they said it was all ready to go but would figure something out...they overnighted both boxes for $5 total.

Its unfortunate but sometimes these things happen. I too have an order from Tuesday that has not shipped but I am not too worried. Can i brew Wednesday? Probably not, but it will get there and as for now, I am very satisfied.

 

[CZs]

I ordered from Midwest on 4/23 and am still in processing mode. I emailed them asking what was going on and they told me about their transition and that my order would likely go out that night or the next day. Ok, no big deal - i understand.

I waited 4 more days and still no word.

I emailed them again stating that I'd like to know exactly what to expect and if they couldn't give me a straight answer then I'd like to cancel my order. I was given the apology again and they took off my shipping fee, saying it was going out this past weekend. Well - here we are Monday afternoon and still no shipment.

I'll be making other brews in the meantime, but, if I don't get my stuff before this weekend you can bet they'll lose out in thousands of dollars in future orders from me. Maybe they should have had better protocols in place to handle a transition. First off - actually communicating to the customers to expect a delay. Instead, I get no word on my order, but I sure do get multiple email promotions from them in the meantime - that doesn't help me and is pretty infuriating. I fear I'm getting the usual apology and the usual high shipping price refunded to shut me up, rather than just give me what I want - my dang supplies!

 

[unionrdr]

According to the tracking number they gave me,mine'll be here tomorrow sometime. Here's hopping.

 

[CZs]

After communicating with Nick at Midwest, the order was processed and is now shipping! I'm happy it was taken care of because I'd rather just keep coming back to them.

 

[unionrdr]

My stuff just got here from midwest @ 4:13pm. Not only did Nick refund my shipping,he/they also gave me a copy of "the best of brew your own" magazine's 250 classic clone recipes!!!! HOORAH! We gunna havta share some of these...

 

[Calichusetts]

Mine shipped yesterday as well. Would like to know if this is the end of our back-log or the end of the problem though.

 

[jungatheart]

Mine shipped yesterday as well. Would like to know if this is the end of our back-log or the end of the problem though.

Nope, mine still hasn't shipped. Just emailed them about it. I had trouble finding their e-mail address from their site. Wonder if they're discouraging people from writing.

 

[unionrdr]

Nope, mine still hasn't shipped. Just emailed them about it. I had trouble finding their e-mail address from their site. Wonder if they're discouraging people from writing.

Sign up for e-mails from them. The info you need is usually in those. And sign up for the reward points program too. saving points can be used to take money off your orders. Reviews count for points on site too.

 

[CZs]

+1 on Midwest points system

Awesome that you got the clone recipes

 

[Calichusetts]

The rewards rock...I've basically got my shipping for free all year now. Sometimes even more

 

[Ridire]

My recent order arrived yesterday. Not too much delay if they are moving warehouses. Totally understandable.