Starting a revolution

[SteelbackGuy]

I like some of the ideas, but I won't speak to even the two-tier system because I work for the board,have no successor rights, and like my job thank you very much.

Wow, why are you on Bar Towel if you don't want to see any progression of Ontario brewing? It's never going to get any better under this current system. Pretty weak.

And who the hell are you pal?
Call me weak?

What's up with that?

I'm on bartowel because I, like yourself, am an advocate of good beer (though I ecpect you're much more of a "Beer Advocate" than I am.)

I work for the LCBO, and while doing so, I try to encourage consumers to try new and exciting beers. But at the same time, I worked hard to get a job there, and I don't want to see it go away. Just like you.


What if I wished that your job would go away?
You wouldn't believe the amount of opportunities I have at work to turn people on to craft beer, and believe me I do. The people who know me on here can vouch for that.........as for you........


You call me weak without even knowing me, and that's "weak".

Grow up a little bit, learn to be constructive....ohh and stop being "weak" dude.

[PRMason]

Although most would agree that the LCBO is not the ideal way to sell beer, it still has some good points. Most of those involve some of the individual employees and their contribution to the beer scene. In fact, the LCBO Beer and Specialty Market people ( the ones who decide what will be sold through the board) are in a very receptive mood these days and are being very constructive with the OCB and with individual brewers as well. I know it has a long way to go before it is perfect, and it may well be that a 2 tier system will ultimately prove to be the way to go, but any progress is good.
As far as individual employees, I have met many people in the stores at different levels from "bottle jockeys" to managers who have been great to work with. A prime example is Bill George at the Queen's Quay location. He is a recognised BJCP beer judge and a man with his finger on the pulse of what is going to be the next big thing. He has proven to be a phenomenal resource for me. He is not the only one, but I do not know all the names of the people I see there each week. There are a lot of people on our side there at the LCBO. Given time, things will get better.

[Belgian]

I like some of the ideas, but I won't speak to even the two-tier system because I work for the board,have no successor rights, and like my job thank you very much.

Wow, why are you on Bar Towel if you don't want to see any progression of Ontario brewing? It's never going to get any better under this current system. Pretty weak.

And who the hell are you pal?
Call me weak?

What's up with that?

Viggo could always get a job at the LCBO, put his own career in jeopardy & see what that does.

[liammckenna]

Take a chill pill steelback guy.

The primary reason we all participate here is to stimulate discussion and hopefully thereby, some positive, real forward movement.

Take pride in that role even when others oppose your views diametrically.

My views on this particular subject:

LCBO - could use some competition, not just from consumers standpoint (choice, value) but from taxpayers standpoint. Although I generally like their shopping environments, I often wonder if that would be so or if they would do so well without a seemingly bottomless resource set.

TBS - ridiculous situation. That this monopoly beer distributor should be owned by some but not all participants is madness. You can't convincingly tell me that this ownership situation does not skew their priorities. Every corporation answers to its shareholders. Why not take it public? I know valuation would be an issue but an independent arbitrator could sort that out quite handily. I would suggest one valuation from current owners, one from the gov't(s) and one from independent analysts would be a good collection to start from. When it does go public, institutional investors should have to wait until private investors have had their fill. This would help prevent recurrence or the current situation (often happens in the reverse for IPO's).

After an IPO, it would remain essentially the same organization but would respond to market forces in a much more productive way. Most retailers would push/favour those products which are demonstrating real growth. Knowing the current dynamics of the beer market (rise of the micro and import), I would expect a very different consumer environment to that which I see in TBS. With this fragmentation of the beer market, I would also expect to see consumer environments more conducive to 'browsing' instead of the current 'wall of shame' environment of most Beer Stores (walk up to the counter, money in hand, repeat after me, 'Please sir, may I have my case of beer')

Then again, 'browsing' scares the pants off their current shareholders and well it should. With beer being an inherently 'low-risk' consumer product, purchasing patterns are easily influenced at point of sale and through effective marketing and advertising. Brand loyalty is much lower than the big boys would have you believe. If consumers were so loyal, why would Molbat spend upwards of 7% gross sales on above the line advertising?

Necessity.

Regnet amor.

Pax.

Liam

[Steve Beaumont]

Liam is quite right, IMO. The LCBO, for what it is and what its mandate decrees it should be, is a pretty decent organization. Sure, there are issues with it, some larger than others, but such is also the case with the majority of private beer stores I've patronized in the States. I've long been a proponent of setting up a parallel, private retail stream, as has been mentioned here, and I still think that would be the best route, but...

The Beer Store is indeed a disgrace, and the real shame of Ontario beer retailing. Owned by Molson and Labatt; taking the "lowest common denominator" approach to beer sales across the board (read "Chill" lately?); preventing its employees from talking about the beers they sell; promoting the "Big 10," or whatever they call it, at the expense of creating anything close to a reasonable shopping environment. Pathetic!

If there's to be a revolution in beer retailing in Ontario, it should start at The Beer Store.

[lister]

I've said it before several times, what I'd like to see tested initially is for those places that have a LCBO and Beer Store right next to each other (like Summerhill), have the LCBO drop all the beers that TBS carries and then bring in whatever imports from the US, Europe, etc or any Ontario micros that aren't normally in the LCBO or TBS. Fix up the idiotic lab stuff plus how the LCBO pays the breweries and communicate those changes to pissed off breweries like Cantillon and the US micros.

If it proves to work and there is a market for this but the LCBO isn't interested in continuing to do that then open up a second private tier with the mandate of only stocking beer that the LCBO and TBS doesn't carry. Include wines, spirits, etc. in there too if the merchant wants to supply those.

If there are no changes then I'd like to see some changes to how private orders are done. I don't see why this can't be brought into the 21st century with a web site to do this. In addition delivery has to change. Geez, pickups Monday through Friday 8am to 4pm?! I realize the process is geared towards businesses but it would be nice for individual private orders if the LCBO would drop off the cases (for those that request it) at the Queen's Quay LCBO across the parking lot. It would be far simpler and easier on the nerves and wallet to drive down on the weekend to pick the cases up. I did get the info for the manager there so I will be asking why can't this be done.

[shintriad]

The LCBO has the same overall mandate as the Beer Store, it's just a bit tarted up with some specialty items. They exist to maximize profits wherever possible, while deferring to the Big Three brewers and to a lesser extent Ontario's indies.

The Dogfish Head order, which sold out faster than any other beer in LCBO history, will likely not be repeated. Neither Molbatt's nor the OCBA can ever compete with that kind of product, and I imagine they weren't comfortable with the idea.

As for the Eastern European Scheisslagers, I'm not sure why they get so much shelf space -- I assume they're profitable enough that it makes it worthwhile. Cheap-ass brew that gets picked up in great quantities by brain-dead Eurodrunks...I guess that occupies a niche that no Canadian brewery can compete with, so it stays.

As long as the LCBO and government monopoly is in place, the situation will never get easier for us beer lovers. It's private orders or border crossings for us, until and unless they scrap the whole project. Much as I understand there are good folks working at the LC and their stores are "clean and well laid out" and all that crap, it's gotta go.

[viggo]

I have the advantage of being smart enough to get another job if I lose mine. The fact is in the current system creativity is a liability, and the system helps whoever can produce the most of the blandest beer. Thats not what I want. If you're upset that I called your position weak, deal with it.

[Stomp Brockmore]

The Dogfish Head order, which sold out faster than any other beer in LCBO history, will likely not be repeated. Neither Molbatt's nor the OCBA can ever compete with that kind of product, and I imagine they weren't comfortable with the idea.

Didn't Peter from Esprit say somewhere around here that it would be repeated next year, in double the quantity? I would go and search but I'm too lazy.

If so, good news, but DFH 60 should be a permanant listing, End Of Story.

[detritus]

I have the advantage of being smart enough to get another job if I lose mine. The fact is in the current system creativity is a liability, and the system helps whoever can produce the most of the blandest beer. Thats not what I want. If you're upset that I called your position weak, deal with it.

Dude, take it easy.

1. You might want to lay off insulting the intelligence and commitment to good beer of other people on the forum. Especially people who've been demonstrating those things here for a long time and have been here a lot longer than you.

2. It's all good for you to make statements like "the current system creativity is a liability, and the system helps whoever can produce the most of the blandest beer", "t's never going to get any better under this current system" and "Ontario needs a two-tier system", but maybe you could try to add something constructive to the discussion?

-Josh

[Wheatsheaf]

As far as individual employees, I have met many people in the stores at different levels from "bottle jockeys" to managers who have been great to work with. A prime example is Bill George at the Queen's Quay location. He is a recognised BJCP beer judge and a man with his finger on the pulse of what is going to be the next big thing. He has proven to be a phenomenal resource for me. He is not the only one, but I do not know all the names of the people I see there each week. There are a lot of people on our side there at the LCBO. Given time, things will get better.

That's all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that they're still drones with little decision-making power. You couldn't walk into Queen's Quay and say "Hey, Bill, I'm just getting ready to bottle some more Tsarina, would you be interested in selling some in the store?" "Sure, Perry, let's start with five cases and go from there. Feel free to drop it off as soon as it's ready."

I'd prefer privately-run stores, but a little bit of autonomy could go a long way towards improving the current system. Let loose some enthusiastic and knowledgeable people at the store level to make things better, rather than having all decisions come down from up on high--product choices, shelf layout, marketing.

The system needs to be opened up so that a beer manager could walk into their store and ask: Why are there only four seasonal releases? Why aren't we selling Rochefort? Why don't we sell glasses? Why do most US gas stations have a better selection of US micros than we do? Why am I putting up cards with tasting notes written by some anonymous wanker? If a customer comes in asking for something we don't carry, why can't I try to order some? And after asking all the questions, they could actually do something about it.

There would be trade-offs, of course. Beer sales would probably go up. Many customers would be less pissed-off. Local brewers would have to bottle more of their beers. The morons buying Corona wouldn't even notice a difference. But if there was the will to do it, I think it would be worth it.

[PRMason]

Well, Bill George, and many people like him, do have the authority. As long as the beer is approved for sale, he can order anything they deem suitable and saleable.

[Stomp Brockmore]

But in order to see a few cases of the Tsarina show up every so often at the Queenquay for example, are there not a whole slew of road blocks making that ideal situation difficult? I don't really know the logistics.

If Bill George wanted to, could he say, start ordering in Tree Hophead IPA? I assumed they could not.

In the case of Tsarina and Tree Hophead, I dearly wish they would...

[Wheatsheaf]

As long as the beer is approved for sale, he can order anything they deem suitable and saleable.

...which is a bit like telling a DJ: You can play any song you want, as long as it's in the Top 40.

Doesn't sound like the kind of authority that I'm thinking of.

[JerCraigs]

As long as the beer is approved for sale, he can order anything they deem suitable and saleable.

...which is a bit like telling a DJ: You can play any song you want, as long as it's in the Top 40.

Thats a pretty extreme over simplification... I believe Perry's point was that there are people at various levels in the system that are trying to support craft beer and are in fact in the know. Although that does highlight the fact that sometimeswhen staff says they can't, it really means they won't.

I share the frustrations being expressed at the limitations imposed by the LCBO and related system, but people in Alberta and Nova Scotia with private stores are still not getting most of the products we in Toronto would love to see even without those limitations.