Well, I tried Northern Brewer one last time. I have been a loyal customer, and given them a wad of my money over the past ten years. Starting about five years ago, they began routinely messing up my orders. Seems like every couple orders would be faulty in some manner (crushed grain when uncrushed was wanted, wrong brand of product, obviously old ingredients, etc).
I kept telling myself, “one last try – I’ll order thru 'em one more time and see how it goes.”
That’s not good. I just started brewing at the beginning of this year and have placed a handful of order fRom nb and haven’t had any issues. I Did get a damaged product once but they sent me a replacement right away and had great customer service.
Every company goes through ups and downs. There’s a cycle between “give the best service we can give” and “we need to cut unnecessary expenses” There are no good economic principles for how to balance service cost versus return business. I think the merger was bad on their service level; let’s call it confusion rather than malice that hurt their service. From my perspective, NB seems to be in an improving phase, regaining the lost ground, and upping their game. So I’m surprised at this time.
My main pet peeve with Northern has been their order-to-ship times. Being in PA, UPS has to come a distance for me, and I do not want my order sitting in a UPS warehouse over a weekend. I try to place my orders on Sunday to give them plenty of time to arrive, and the record was a bit spotty. My last order using the new website was much clearer on the timelines. I can see they’re working it; so my willingness to use them is on the rise.
Unfortunately for NB, Amazon is becoming competition; the variety of “Prime Eligible” home brew supplies is improving.
I have never had any real issues with NB. The recipe kits are pretty solid. I once got a punctured bottle of LME and they quickly replaced it free of charge.
I have a local home brew shop that’s very overpriced, which is why I started using NB. I also typically only purchase during their sales. This allows me to basically buy 2 NB kits for the price of one local kit.
Of the very few issues I’ve had w NB, I’ve called and told them what was ordered vs received, and within the day they had sent the correct items at no charge.
Full Disclosure…I am the foreman at a foodservice distribution center (warehouse), and I can tell you FOR SURE that people will, albeit rarely, make a mistake. This is compounded and more evident when you have new people who are still learning the job.
Again, If I’ve had ANY issue, I’ve called and they replaced all or part of the order asap.
In way of a response to several of the above:
-As I said, this wasn’t an “up and down” cycle. It was a routinely bad job by NB of fulfilling their end of the bargain.
-secondly, the manner in which they rectified the situation was: “we will send you a replacement at no charge.” As a working man and a homebrewer, I have few days in the month to brew. When NB screws up an order that can entail messing up my brewing plans for several days/weeks. Even when they send a replacement, they cannot send me an extra day off work.
-finally, I don’t care ‘what’ their excuse is for their errors (new employees, etc). That’s their concern. I am concerned with receiving my supplies as ordered.
Several in my brew club have had similar experiences
Order hops and grain in bulk
Harvest and repitch yeast or use dry and keep a stock
Buy your ingredients a little sooner than you do so everything arrives with enough time before you plan to brew to account for said shipping errors.
It can’t just be you. There are, thousands I’m sure, of customers that are satisfied with Northern Brewer. Most of the time, if that’s the case, you’re doing it wrong.
That, or they probably just have your name on a list somewhere up there that says, “F*ck with this guy if he orders something”
[quote=“Beersk”]Well, dude, you need to do all of these things:
Order hops and grain in bulk
Harvest and repitch yeast or use dry and keep a stock
Buy your ingredients a little sooner than you do so everything arrives with enough time before you plan to brew to account for said shipping errors.
It can’t just be you. There are, thousands I’m sure, of customers that are satisfied with Northern Brewer. Most of the time, if that’s the case, you’re doing it wrong.
That, or they probably just have your name on a list somewhere up there that says, “F*ck with this guy if he orders something”[/quote]
+1, this guy’s name has got to be on a wall somewhere.
+1 to Beersk. Order supplies sooner. Every time I brew, I’m thinking, “what’s my next brew?” When I did extract, I always ordered 2 at a time.
On the downside, since I went AG, and started getting grain in bulk, I’m finding it harder to use NB. I find myself having everything in stock except for say a specialty grain. That grain may be only $2/lb, but when adding $7.99 shipping; I just can’t pull the trigger.
I had ordered the Pre-Prohibition Lager AG kit from NB, and just milled the grains. Problem is, the Flaked Corn Maize was in the grains. Now I have corn powder with the milled grains.
Maybe not a big deal, but I’d like for them to get my orders correct. And the excuse “We’re awfully busy” doesn’t work for me. Who isn’t?
[quote=“Beersk”]Well, dude, you need to do all of these things:
Order hops and grain in bulk
Harvest and repitch yeast or use dry and keep a stock
Buy your ingredients a little sooner than you do so everything arrives with enough time before you plan to brew to account for said shipping errors.
It can’t just be you. There are, thousands I’m sure, of customers that are satisfied with Northern Brewer. Most of the time, if that’s the case, you’re doing it wrong.
That, or they probably just have your name on a list somewhere up there that says, “F*ck with this guy if he orders something”[/quote]
I have never had a problem with NBs service. You do have to plan ahead anytime you are brewing. There is always the chance that something will go wrong and it is not their fault if the shipping company manhandles the order.
One nice thing about a LHBS is you can hold the order in your hand before paying for it. That might mean paying lots more money so it is a trade off. For me when buying grain 50lbs or 25kg at a time there is no way to get it any other way than locally due to shipping cost but when other stuff is much less expensive online you have to shop around by car or your computer.
[quote=“Beersk”]Well, dude, you need to do all of these things:
Order hops and grain in bulk
Harvest and repitch yeast or use dry and keep a stock
Buy your ingredients a little sooner than you do so everything arrives with enough time before you plan to brew to account for said shipping errors.
[/quote]
Well, dude, I do order in bulk; harvest and repitch/use dry yeast as well; plan out brewing days. IOW all of the things you suggested. This weekend I had intended to brew two batches on consecutive days (both lagers, so I could ferment 'em together). Having a bit of faith left in NB, who said my Vienna malt would be here Fri evening, I was set (or so I believed). Would of been an epic brew weekend if they’d come thru as they promised.
Oh ya? Then they made a bad business decision. Because they are getting bad press from a once-loyal customer.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a little wrong to be asking for recommendations on one company’s hosted site for one of it’s competitors. There are other non-affiliated sites out there that would be able to provide plenty of recommendations. I’d even be happy to provide one on one of those sites, but on NB’s own site? C’mon… :roll:
Anyone have another company to recommend?[/quote]
I get a lot of stuff from Farmhouse Brewing Supply. They’re out of Wisconsin. Not as much variety, but great service and a great place to go for hops at good prices. http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/
Sorry about your bad experience with NB. I never used to shop with them until a few years ago. They were always too expensive. Then the MidWest merge happened and I said, eff it. It’s all the same now. But I don’t shop there much anymore either. Mostly Farmhouse for little stuff and get grains in bulk from homebrew club buys.
Well, it is only a forum, a place where brewer’s meet to talk about brewing and our preferences/experiences. I would have a hard time believing every single brewer on here is a loyal NB customer. We all come from different parts of the US (or world) and some of us choose our brew shops that are closest (as we all should for environmental and shipping reasons), so I don’t think it’s a bad thing to make suggestions on a public forum.
Glad you said that, and I totally agree. Seems like rather bad form to me as well.[/quote]
Same thought occurred to me as well. Its not about being a loyal customer, but about courtesy. They are being nice enough to host this site and let anyone use it, we could at least refrain from bashing them here.
Glad you said that, and I totally agree. Seems like rather bad form to me as well.[/quote]
Same thought occurred to me as well. Its not about being a loyal customer, but about courtesy. They are being nice enough to host this site and let anyone use it, we could at least refrain from bashing them here.[/quote]
I don’t think this is a matter of bashing. I know everyone wants to assume the attitude of, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” but get real guys, sht happens, people want to let others know about it, maybe, just maybe some of you more loyal customers could convince beermebeavis that he should keep trying, or tell him there’s nothing wrong with taking his business elsewhere. But he wanted to vent, and this is a place for him to do it. It is also a way to bring it to Northern Brewer’s attention as well, that, hey, they fcked up on multiple occasions.
They’re going nowhere, don’t worry about that. A little bashing from an unhappy customer isn’t going to hurt their business.
