lech now at LCBO

[John Aitken]

Just can't get enough of that Polish stuff...FYI, the LCBO rejected both Dead Guy Ale (in 355ml) and Dogfish Head 60 MInute as General Listings this past week. We've demanded a more detailed explanation of their one line rejection but if something of sustance is not forthcoming, I may call on bartowellers to participate in a petition to the LCBO regarding the Beer category.

I wonder if this is due to the new CAN packaging goal.

[Stomp Brockmore]

Denying either of those is ridiculous, especially the DFH 60, especially considering how well it sold as a seasonal. The LCBO is out of it's collective governmental mind.

I'm in for whatever petition may happen.

[Rosko]

I'll sign any petition relating to this.

So there are now the following Polish beers available year round - Okocim, Okocim Porter, Zyweic, Tyskie and the absolutely heinous Warka.

And now there's more?

This news comes a day after I scoured the huge beer room at Wilson and Dufferin looking in vain for ANY IPA. There wasn't a bottle or can to be had for love or money.

This during the LCBO's "We've got beer" promotion as well.

At least I can now look forward to a new Eastern European swill to take up space that real craft brewers can't afford to fill.

ARRRGGGHHH!!!

[pootz]

Just can't get enough of that Polish stuff...FYI, the LCBO rejected both Dead Guy Ale (in 355ml) and Dogfish Head 60 MInute as General Listings this past week. We've demanded a more detailed explanation of their one line rejection but if something of sustance is not forthcoming, I may call on bartowellers to participate in a petition to the LCBO regarding the Beer category.

Sigh!....I'm a lager fan but why am I not excited about another uninspirering canned east block beer edging out beers with demonstrated public demand for LCBO shelf space?....items like DFH 60IPA or the Rogue products which sell out fast should be stock items. Why is it I see cases and cases of crappy east block welfare pilsnersthat sit unpurchased past their expirery date? Outside of the German mainstream lagers and a few Czech and polish lagers that are actually quality enough to sell well, the recent rash of commie crap like Baltica and its clones still remain as unsold stock shelf items while in-demand micros from the US and Canada go wanting for adequate import numbers and shelf space.

Im in on the petition...I have written letters but I get evasive non answers and unstated contempt back. It really IS time to shake up the LCBO beer purchasing policy autocracy...time to remind them that departmental agendas about cans or great profit margins from crappy commie beer or patronage protectionism or ideological bias over country of origin do not trump consumer demands....when you are in a consumer servicing industry......consumers, not bureaucrats, drive the demand curve....something these Keynesian dip shits need to be reminded of in some definate terms.

[Al of Kingston]

We should create two convoys hitting the borders at Buffalo and the Thousand Islands at the same time, in line ready to pay taxes etc., loaded up with good US micro brews bought in NY state with cars covered in banners about the LCBO's practices. No one will give a rats ass but at least it would be fun and feel good.

[pootz]

We should create two convoys hitting the borders at Buffalo and the Thousand Islands at the same time, in line ready to pay taxes etc., loaded up with good US micro brews bought in NY state with cars covered in banners about the LCBO's practices. No one will give a rats ass but at least it would be fun and feel good.

We have all seen what open violent dissent that causes embarassment to the current government will get you....ask the protesters at Caledonia...maybe we can claim "consumer rights" and occupy the main LCBO outlet and put up barricades....maybe burn a few skids of coors or Balltica

[pootz]

Lceh Pilsner from Poland, is now available at the LCBO in 500 ml can format. Introductory price is $1.75.

Judging by your rate beer review, Ive already tasted what this beer has to offer even though I've never bought a Lech in my life

[Belgian]

Denying 60 minute IPA is impossible for them to justify.

Government entities can justify anything...

No I think you mean to say they don't HAVE to or try NOT to justify anything they do. They feel no need to dignify the intelligence of the average Canadian explaining their reasons for doing anything, unless there's significant political pressure.

What 'pressure' could ever happen HERE is hard to say - we're much too comfy in our complacent little Canadian lives to get mad enough about anything to amass any real political will. As a government, it's too easy to screw around Canadian citizens.

Contrast that to some South American countries, where by outraged protest people have some actual participation in government. We're just not lean & mean enough to be like that in this time of first-world prosperity.

[skaghevn]

It really IS time to shake up the LCBO beer purchasing policy autocracy...

Let's not be short-sighted here; it's time to shake up all LCBO purchasing departments. I've heard whisk(e)y drinkers whine, I've heard wine drinkers ... uhm ... bemoan, but I've not seen a concerted effort to affect the Board's purchasing practices. Perhaps it's time to unite Ontario's disgruntled drinkers and set things right...

[Al of Kingston]

OK, maybe a protest in the form of a "drink-in" then. We take over some facility of the LCBO and give away drinks that taste better and cost less than anything they carry.

[pootz]

It really IS time to shake up the LCBO beer purchasing policy autocracy...

Let's not be short-sighted here; it's time to shake up all LCBO purchasing departments. I've heard whisk(e)y drinkers whine, I've heard wine drinkers ... uhm ... bemoan, but I've not seen a concerted effort to affect the Board's purchasing practices. Perhaps it's time to unite Ontario's disgruntled drinkers and set things right...

Well at the risk of becoming a nag I suggested several times the way to deal with this "problem" (which is really a matter of a retailing monopoly not satifying the demand curve of a minority of consumers of "specialty" products), is to allow the private sector to carve out a small niche in satisying that demad for specialty items which the LCBO is not willing to take a risk on marketing.....let privateers who wish to take the risk marketing to a small specialty clientale take the risks and the business...winners all around.

Small private licenced bottle shops who import/retail the items LCBO will not stock due to a selective monolithic shelf space policy which does not want to gamble on wide product diversity....the little retailers of these specialty items represents no threat to the LCBO's virtual monopoly and does not cheat Dolton of any taxes due...yet patrons of the specialty market are satisfied...win-win.

Why has this simple free market solution not gone forward?

My instincts and obsevasions say that in this part of Canada free market demand side solutions or supply side legislating is ideologically abhorant to the powers that be.....I deeply believe that bureaucratic regulators and political class administrators have become so inbred in their thinking that the Keynesian command side model of government control of markets solves all ills that they reflexively reject realities that prove the opposite is true in many cases. The biggest lie told in Canada is that we are a "mixed" economy when most of our legislators and buraucracies forward command economy solutions to our markets.

Cracking inbred indeological resistance in the bureaucracy is always a daunting task.....and I think the best way to approach this is to ask and negotiate for a small private sector solution outside the liquor retail monopoly then if we get rejection with no rational answers other than the exercise of unilateral authority for its own sake, you go to the SA model...embarass the buggers publicly until you can politically blackmail them into doing the right thing.

[Bobbyok]

Why has this simple free market solution not gone forward?

History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

LCBO bureaucrats = privileged group.

[pootz]

Why has this simple free market solution not gone forward?

History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

LCBO bureaucrats = privileged group.

Time for thirsty beer/wine/wiskey geeks to storm the Bastille

[Mississauga Matt]

A while back I suggested that people simply pick up a case of beer and place it in a more appropriate spot if the original location was not to their liking.

My next suggestion is that people randomly select some of these Euro-lagers - can or bottle - and give them a good shake before returning them to the shelf.

[Dokta Owange]

We should create two convoys hitting the borders at Buffalo and the Thousand Islands at the same time, in line ready to pay taxes etc., loaded up with good US micro brews bought in NY state with cars covered in banners about the LCBO's practices. No one will give a rats ass but at least it would be fun and feel good.

classic!! there would have to be enough cars to generate enough of a backup at the border so it would generate media coverage....say, 100 cars in buffalo at 5pm on a Sunday/Monday of a Holiday weekend, with each car having excessive amounts of beer....I think Karl would have no prob with the Canadian invasion!