The Bar Towel

But the five is per person per visit as I have brought a heck of a lot more beer than 5 cases over the border in 2006. I do not think they track cumulatively.

Al the beerblogger wrote:But the five is per person per visit as I have brought a heck of a lot more beer than 5 cases over the border in 2006. I do not think they track cumulatively.

5 cases was in reference to the LCBO lab fees.

Oops! I will back away from the keyboard slowly now...slowly...

inertiaboy wrote:

flip wrote:Update: I just heard back from Alan Spirits at Hair of The Dog. He said that he'd already handled an order from the LCBO this year. I haven't yet followed up with the LCBO.

Here's my conspiracy theory: the LCBO didn't actually send out the request for quotes to the four breweries I asked about because they don't want to encourage these types of orders. Instead, they just told me that they didn't get any responses. If you are talking to Alan again, can you ask him if he received a request from the LCBO in July/August?

Alan got back to me: he said that he did get a request for a quote but told the LCBO that the lab fees were too high for him, hence his 5 case/product limit.

inertiaboy wrote:

flip wrote:Update: I just heard back from Alan Spirits at Hair of The Dog. He said that he'd already handled an order from the LCBO this year. I haven't yet followed up with the LCBO.

Here's my conspiracy theory: the LCBO didn't actually send out the request for quotes to the four breweries I asked about because they don't want to encourage these types of orders. Instead, they just told me that they didn't get any responses. If you are talking to Alan again, can you ask him if he received a request from the LCBO in July/August?

That's been my suspicion, definitely.

Well the 5 case min. isn't a problem as seen with the Great Divide order, so does that mean he will do a private order if we meet the minimum. If I remember correctly, the lab fees are waived if you exceed 5 cases of a product and it is for personal consumption or was it Max. 5 cases per person only for personal consumption. Didn't we get around the whole lab fee issue with Great Divide due to this exemption.

I think the testing & Lab fees are waived if no single purchaser acquires more than the allowed per-item amount.

That's why we were able to get so many cases of Titan, Yeti etc. in the Great Divide order - these were combined purchase requests (assigned to you, me & everyone individually) that the LCBO put together for us - as a single large shipping order the brewery could justify dealing with.

It was still a multi-person order, just bundled together for shipping.

Another Private Order Update:

I just heard back from Bear Republic: they refuse to deal with the LCBO. They state that they have experienced problems with their labeling and shipping requirements and have also had issues collecting payments from them. As of July, they no longer accept orders from them.

Any volunteers to organize another Great Divide order?

i'm not sure how the private orders work, but i'm curious. Would it not be possible to put together a private order with any breweries such as AleSmith, Bells, Stone, Victory, New Glarus, Three Floyd's, Goose Island?
After finding out how tiny Hair of the Dog is, wouldnt is be plausable to do one with any of those mentionned breweries? Like i said, i'm not sure what is involved in a private order, so no biting my head off.

robinvboyer wrote:i'm not sure how the private orders work, but i'm curious. Would it not be possible to put together a private order with any breweries such as AleSmith, Bells, Stone, Victory, New Glarus, Three Floyd's, Goose Island?
After finding out how tiny Hair of the Dog is, wouldnt is be plausable to do one with any of those mentionned breweries? Like i said, i'm not sure what is involved in a private order, so no biting my head off.

Many of those breweries will not deal with private orders via the LCBO in any way AT ALL. THe LCBO have burned bridges with many great American breweries OR the breweries have heard about the hoops they have to jump through to deal with the LCBO and aren't willing to jump.

well, i can't say that answer surprises me, after hearing about the Cantillon fiasco. Way to go LCBO!

Some of the breweries that I contacted never got back to me. Bear Republic did and said in no uncertain terms that they would not deal with the LCBO.

An article in The Globe and Mail's Small Business section entitled "Merchant of Cheer" may shed some light into why a lot of places would not want to deal with the LCBO. Look for the section entitled (ironically) "Let's Play Monopoly". If a consignment order is made from a supplier (winery, brewery, etc.) that supplier isn't paid until all of the consignment order is sold. That could be months away... not very convenient at all.

With that in mind, us making private orders and not picking everything up is a pretty damn good way to burn our private order bridges with the places that WILL deal with us.

Everone make sure they get their orders pronto!

flip wrote:Everone make sure they get their orders pronto!

I expect it's enough for everyone to at least pay for their order ASAP (which can be done over the phone if you are using a credit card). I only mention this because I'm in Ottawa & I forgot to fill in the "deliver to this LCBO' field on the order form, so my case of Doggie Claws went to Toronto. It should be up here in another week or so, but I did pay for my case when I was arranging shipping.

hops are your friend wrote:I only mention this because I'm in Ottawa & I forgot to fill in the "deliver to this LCBO' field on the order form, so my case of Doggie Claws went to Toronto.

They all go to Toronto first and then are transferred. Even if you did fill in the store on the original form, they would still ask you for that information when you pay. So, I don't think you lost any time.