The Bar Towel

If I posted a list of the beers that the LCBO has declined over the past several years you guys would die. But, again, I understand their mandate and, frankly, even though I don't like it, if I were in their position I would probably be doing the same thing.

Even within the confines of the present regulations, I wonder though why a much broader range of imports couldn't be authorised for sale say just at one location, maybe in a warehouse-style operation (much like any Beer Store in fact) in downtown Toronto. Maybe put one in London, one in Ottawa and a couple of other locations. The SAQ did something like that with its store on St-Denis in Montreal although the initiative didn't continue. Instead of trying to put all these products in every LCBO (which even now is not the case, different ones get different beers at different times seemingly), just put more of them in fewer places. I see this as win-win for all involved in the process of importing and selling beer in Ontario.


Gary

old faithful wrote:I see this as win-win for all involved in the process of importing and selling beer in Ontario.

Agreed, provided there is some way to mitigate the risk of the product not selling. If the agent needs to bring in, say, 72 cases from the brewery, they probably want an assurance that they won't be stuck with half those cases. Otherwise, it is likely not worth their effort.

Pre-ordering is one way to help here, but it really only appeals to those who know what they want and are willing to wait for it. Maybe the approach is to start small via private orders (like Great Divide) and demonstrate that it is a viable approach.

If we can get the GD order to work, maybe we should work with Peter to see if we can organize an order for one of the breweries he represents. If we can do all the time-consuming work of organizing who wants what, then we can minimize the effort he would need to expend and we might get access to products that we currently can't. To a very real extent, this model works in Quebec - the recent Command Kebec offering was organized by the Bieropholie group and an order for over 240 cases (I think) was passed through an agent.

Just a thought...

Inertiaboy, I agree completely, the trouble in the past is that Bartowelers, in my opinion anyway, did not seem to put their money where their mouth (posts) were. But in the past year or so, I see more and more folks who are willing to put up the cash for decent case orders (maybe we all got new jobs or something ). I'd love to follow the Bieropholie model if Peter or other agents are willing to work with us.

tupalev wrote:Inertiaboy, I agree completely, the trouble in the past is that Bartowelers, in my opinion anyway, did not seem to put their money where their mouth (posts) were. But in the past year or so, I see more and more folks who are willing to put up the cash for decent case orders (maybe we all got new jobs or something ). I'd love to follow the Bieropholie model if Peter or other agents are willing to work with us.

My impression is that the Bieropholie order draw from a much bigger pool of consumers than BarTowel currently (or at least before the Star article) has. Maybe they started much smaller - anybody know how the first order(s) there came about?

-Josh

tupalev wrote: ...in the past is that Bartowelers, in my opinion anyway, did not seem to put their money where their mouth (posts) were. But in the past year or so, I see more and more folks who are willing to put up the cash...

This is exactly why I wonder if the Great Divide order will ever materialize, from this lack of consideration to others. THINK about this everyone... no BS for the sake of big talking.

We should be completely sincere about pledges to parttake in an order, to the extent of setting at least enough money aside and then (for our word) fastly refusing to later on 'be a little short right now' for any reason - that's almost like stealing from the others and there's simply no acceptable excuse for it.

[Sorry if this sounded harsh but we should feel a little ashamed to bail on a group order we were never "solid" for to begin with.]

The OTHER way we might be mutually considerate is to pull together a little in what we all really want instead of chiming in for one or two of everything GD sell, because I'm wondering, would that really fly, Jeff? Would a Poll or something help to create a possible order scenario?

Inertiaboy is doing a great job organizing this one, if this order is even doable, we'll worry about the actual commitments then (and Cass has offered to set up another page for us to track the orders). Here's hoping!

I haven't received a reply from Brian at Great Divide about minimum orders for each product so I've asked Sylvia at the LCBO to contact him about this and to get quotes for each of the available products. Hopefully that won't take more than a couple of weeks.

FYI guys, we have been talking to Great Divide and they are interested in the possibility of working with us but the talks are in the preliminary stages.

Why import beer competition for the struggling Ontario micro market?Why not promote Scotch Irish Sgt. Major? We don't need to look south of the border for a nicely hopped beer.

CapFlu wrote:Why import beer competition for the struggling Ontario micro market?Why not promote Scotch Irish Sgt. Major? We don't need to look south of the border for a nicely hopped beer.

What a stupid friggin' question. Why? Because as much as I like Sgt. Major, I don't want to spend my life drinking nothing but Sgt. Major.

CapFlu wrote:Why import beer competition for the struggling Ontario micro market?Why not promote Scotch Irish Sgt. Major? We don't need to look south of the border for a nicely hopped beer.

I agree, but unfortunately Scotch Irish is about as hard to get in Ontario as Great Divide or Dogfishhead.

Since Perry delivers his beer to select LCBOs directly, does this mean we cannot use their delivery system between stores? I’ve never looked into it.