Hop Devil -- *ACK*

Immotius · Post by **Immotius** » Tue Apr 23, 2002 11:14 pm

Cannot believe how hard it is to get any Hop-Devil anymore.

Is it just me or does the LCBO have a perverse concept of business sense. It turns out that pretty much all the HD is being stored in one location...

Can they stock the Atrium, Davisville, Manulife, Bayview Village, or Richmond Hill? Nooooooo. Do they plan on redistributing? Nooooooo.

Grrrrrrrr ** ARG.

skaghevn · Post by **skaghevn** » Wed Apr 24, 2002 4:07 pm

Can they stock the Atrium, Davisville, Manulife, Bayview Village, or Richmond Hill? Nooooooo.

Considering that 3 of the 5 locations that have it still are stores that I live near, I'm not complaining! There is, of course, a trade-off, given that downtown normally has the better selection. Was Skullsplitter on the shelf in my area for more than 24 hours? Noooooo.

Now if only I could finish off all these bottles of Wild Irish before the weather warms up any more...

Rob

Immotius · Post by **Immotius** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 12:47 am

3 out of 5?

What do you mean by "near"? Where could you possibly be that is the epicentre of 5 LCBO's?

esprit · Post by **esprit** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 12:17 pm

If anyone's really serious about getting their hands on full cases of HopDevil, give us a call and we'll see what we can do for you. I work out of my home in the west-end (Runnymede and Annette) and if you're either willing to pick up from me or if you're in the downtown core and can receive deliveries during the day we'll consider rounding up stock from some of the more remote stores that still have it...but we would have to set a minimum purchase of a case and it would be a cash deal.

Peter
tel 416-762-5593
esprit@infinity.net

esprit · Post by **esprit** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 12:34 pm

One comment about the observation that the LCBO seems to stocking most of the product at a few selected locations...we have been pushing the LCBO to ensure that stores like Queen's Quay and Bayview get substantially more product than your average run of the mill store. When these promotions started about a year ago, these big stores would get the standard case or two and run out of stock in the first week and then often find that there was nothing left in the warehouse. The LCBO is trying to refine the distribution. There are no fewer stores participating since some could simply not sell these kinds of products. Also, the larger stores are now getting fairly hefty initial orders so they're not running out as quickly. As of Friday Queen's Quay still had stock of HopDevil, Brutal Bitter and Sam Smith India Ale and that's two months into the promo so they're obviously getting better. What's frustrating is to see smaller stores get their 2 cases and blow them out in a few days, often because one beer love walks in and cleans them out. The ideal that both we and the LCBO are trying to work towards is that stock is available to most stores for the 8 week duration of the program but we need to ensure that, at the end of the promo, there is very little stock remaining as the shelf space is needed for the next promotion. Both we and the LCBO are working on trying to make the distribution more efficient by increasing order sizes and tailoring store allocations based upon sales history but all of this takes time and, as I am sure you can appreciate, for the tiny quantities involved and minimal profit for the LCBO and the stores, these products occupy a disproportional amount of everyone's time. The bottom line is that it we should see the inventory situation improve with each promo but keep up the feedback for both us agents and for the LCBO who do visit this site.

Peter

skaghevn · Post by **skaghevn** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 4:59 pm

Where could you possibly be that is the epicentre of 5 LCBO's?

One of the few benefits to being stuck out in the wild west end is that I'm only about a 7 minute car ride from the Crossroads store and a couple of decent stores located in malls.

Mind you, it's not all fun and games. Recently, the LCBO renovated a nice lil' store (Bloor & Royal York), finally giving it a refigerated beer section. Sounds good, right? It would've been if they hadn't killed the selection of imports & micros.

Hint to the LCBO: when you make the beer selection boring, I don't go in much. When I don't go in much, I'm not buying as many wines or spirits (not to mention beers) as I used to. Smaller selection = fewer sales.

Kent · Post by **Kent** » Sun Apr 28, 2002 7:59 pm

I was speaking to the manager of an LCBO store outside of Hamilton (Ancaster-Wilson St.). I questioned him regarding the Spring Releases and was told that, unlike others, his store "is not forced" to take the specials and indeed, he does not stock any (just your regular fare - Corona, Heinekin, etc.). I got the impression that this store is not unique and that there are others throughout the provence.
He seemed very pleased with this situation and felt that it made his store more profitable.I hope this does not become a growing trend.

esprit · Post by **esprit** » Tue Apr 30, 2002 11:10 am

Less than 100 out of the over 600 LCBO stores is forced to participate although there are some stores who do bring in some of the specials even though they are not forced, however, the attitude expressed that store manager is not unique. I've heard more than one manager say he did not want to be bothered with single bottles of premium beer in his/her store especially these promotional beers which come and go and require a lot of "work" on their part. Unfortunately, there are still too many LCBO managers out there who don't think like retailers who want to serve the public. To them the objective is do as little as possible to achieve the maximum sales....sell Canadian Club, Gallo and Corona!!!

Publican · Post by **Publican** » Fri May 10, 2002 8:16 pm

Peter, do you know if the LCBO would consider stocking any of the promotional beers on a full time basis. Is there a number of bottles
that must be sold to make it onto general list or does the LCBO consider these beers only promotional that can never be on General list no matter how many they sell

esprit · Post by **esprit** » Sat May 11, 2002 7:31 pm

LCBO minimum quotas are in the range of 7,000-10,000 cases per year so I can tell you that nothing that has come through the promotional program has shown the sort of sales potential it takes to make it to the General List. I have just heard that one of the Anchors has been de-listed....that should tell you something. We recently received the product requirement list from LCBO Beers for the coming year and, other than promotional opportunities, the only call for permanent General Listings is for Eastern and Southern European lagers so you guys can possibly look forward to some killer lagers from Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria or Romania!
On the slightly more positive side, we do have a beer from St. Peter's of England coming to the General List, not so much because of the performance of any single St. Peter's beer (although they all have done quite well) but because of the performance of the line in General. We'll post more about this product in the near future as we should see it hitting the shelves in July.

Mississauga Matt · Post by **Mississauga Matt** » Tue May 14, 2002 1:00 pm

My guess is that it's Anchor Liberty Ale that's being de-listed. I was down at the Queen's Quay store where they have a stack of brochures entitled "classic beers" sitting on one of the shelves. Anchor Steam is in there, Liberty is not.

Here are the "classic" beers:

Pilsner Urquell
Guinness
Kilkenny Cream Ale
Hoegaarden
Bass
Newcastle Brown Ale
Schneider Weisse
Chimay Premier
Duvel
Anchor Steam

Publican · Post by **Publican** » Tue May 14, 2002 6:28 pm

I was wondering if Anchor Liberty Ale was the beer that was being delisted, so i went to the LCBO website and found the beer listed there, however there was a asterisk after the
words 650mLB. Does any one know what the asterisk refers to ?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Publican on 2002-05-14 18:30 ]</font>

The Bar Towel

Hop Devil -- ACK