(Charleston, SC) – Just as you can count on the sun rising each day, you can count on at least one distributor shipping out a limited Founders Brewing release early.
Last Monday, the brewery posted on its Instagram account that it had just bottled Frangelic Mountain Brown, the next release in the Backstage Series. On Friday, South Carolina-based Charleston Beer Exchange shared that it had the beer in stock. Fresh beer, right?
Only one problem. The beer wasn’t supposed to be released in shops until July 2nd.
Per its website, Carolina Craft Distributing Still tracking the mystery wholesaler that is responsible for spreading the beer around Charleston and educating retailers on the July 2nd stipulation. Or did CBX not obey orders? Who knows…
It isn’t the first time that this has happened.
With the Canadian Breakfast Stout release, the beer made its way out into New York City early and it has happened with some of the KBS releases as well.
Adding insult to injury for Founders, the beer is already up on eBay.
Just to help clarify some facts:
Carolina Craft no longer exists and had not actually sold any Founders in quite some time. The brand iis now distributed by several other wholesalers in various parts of South Carolina.
Regarding our selling of Frangelic Mountain Brown, it was offered for sale by our Charleston area wholesaler along with every other Founders product we currently have in stock. There were no stipulations given. Wholesalers generally do not release product in to the market with any “orders to obey”. If they don’t intend for retailers to sell it to the public until a certain date then they hold it back from the market until that time (or very close to it).
As of this time, we have received no requests from the distributor or brewery to stop selling this product.
Best,
The Charleston Beer Exchange
Adam, I don’t think it is a proper journalistic approach to play the blame game when you don’t even have most of the basic facts straight.
Thanks for the clarifications. I’ve got a note out to Founders about who the beer distributors are in SC. It’s missing from their website.
Were you aware of the July 2nd stipulation?
One fact wrong, buddy, and an understandable mistake.
Re: blame game, not exactly sure what you are referring to but I have a request out to Founders for a list of their distributors in SC which will aid my future reporting.
Best,
Adam
Blame game is referring to mentioning a single store. Stores don’t make money sitting on beer waiting for official release days. If a distributor distributes the beer, they are basically giving the ok to sell the beer. Why not just report that a beer was released early and leave it at that? If you don’t have all the details, don’t report all the possibilities.
I’m a beer buyer at a liquor store in Illinois and we NEVER get accurate info on when we are getting a limited beer in (the release dates given from a brewery aren’t when a local distributor gets it) and I’ve never been asked to hold one back until a certain date. Once we get the beer it’s up for sale. The only liquor item that must be held back is Beaujolais Nouveau wine which has a specific release day and we have to sign something saying we won’t sell it until then.
One could assume that other stores may have released early as well but CBX was the only store that sent out a tweet. If something is public and out in the open, I will absolutely pull it into an article to add context, information, etc. I’ve done this plenty of times here. This isn’t a personal thing against CBX in the least. This would be a really boring place if all I did was post press releases and prop up breweries on a pedestal. I like what the CBX guys do & have even talked to one of the guys there extensively. Good people from what I can tell.
As for stores or distributors sitting on beer and not making money on it, that is the cost of doing business with Founders. One could pose that scenario to the brewery though they would probably say that limited releases always sell out and keeping some beer in stock an extra week shouldn’t have much of any financial impact on the operation. If it was fifty 30-packs of Coors hogging up cooler space, that’s different. A case of two of a limited beer that will fly once it’s on the shelf? Meh.
@Jeff, I think Founders is the only company that does it regularly. I can’t think of any other breweries that do it right off of the bat.
So, if you get Frangelic Mountain Brown in the shop before July 2nd, will you put it up prior to the date or respect the brewery’s wishes to leave it off of the shelf?
As an ex beer buyer, I can tell you that I would sell that beer as soon as I received it. If Founders wants it held back, they need to settle that with the distributors. The beer stores have no contracts with the brewery. Welcome to retail.
That’s a fair point. Of course, there are circumstances where a brewery can ask a distributor to stop allocating to a store. Not sure how much that happens in reality though.
It doesn’t usually happen, especially when that store is on of the highest volume sellers of said brewery’s beer. Besides, I don’t think any reasonable brewer would expect retail stores to sit on their beer for weeks waiting for an official release date. Beer storage and controlling release is the distributor’s job. Same situation when a beer is delivered to a state before abc approval. The distributor must sit on it and wait for approval.
Really appreciate the insight as someone who has worked in the business. Hope you comment a lot more going forward!
Which is why such a limited release with an associated release date is the dumbest thing ever. Also why I stopped buying things like this. Who revolves their life around buying a beer on a certain day…people who should be in “meetings” instead.
I love this. I’m a new distributor of Founders and they sent us the wrong entire first shipment of beer. SELL IT. SELL IT. SELL IT!
yum…………………
@Adam-Well Founders hasn’t done it with KBS or the one case of Better Half we got in earlier this year. I think micros will ask distributors not to ship something until a certain date but not to stores to not sell it. IF they did, I’m really not sure what I’d do-beers like this tend to be pre-sold to our better customers who are on a waiting list, and quite frankly already cause a huge headache because we get 12 bottles, but have 25 people wanting some. I like to get it over with quickly! On the other hand, being able to get rare beers like this is great for our store, so I’d probably stick to the brewery’s wishes.
Again. Break & failure on 3-tier system. Lack of communication between breweries, wholesalers & retailers is BROKEN.