The Bar Towel

Just a note,

The 2006 Chimay Bleue is labelled in two ways:

In the Gift Pack it has "regular" labelling, the "Vintage Date" they've started putting on the bleue, and a 2011 expiry.

I just noticed the Singles say 2009 expiry but you can probably ignore this. I'm pretty sure they just used an old stock of labels from the 2004 release, because these appear to be bi-lingual labels for the Ontario market.

Tasting notes of singles: tastes like Chimay Bleue to me - maybe a little new still - expect it will settle in after 6 or more months. Quite nice really.

Price is 3.20 not 3.05 unless there's a 15¢ refundable bottle deposit on it.

LCBO.ca shows only Coxwell/O'Connor having stock. Bit out of the way for me. Anyone seen it on the shelves elsewhere?

Gedge wrote:LCBO.ca shows only Coxwell/O'Connor having stock. Bit out of the way for me. Anyone seen it on the shelves elsewhere?

I saw some on the shelves at Queens Quay yesterday at lunch.

All gone now.

Ahh... the mousehole of opportunity...

There was a case or two on the shelf but no cartons on the floor that I saw.

Coxwell / O'Connor is a great store, with lot parking.

There was close to 24 on the shelves at the Dundurn LCBO in Hamilton. None for me thought...I dropped over $100 on the Fuller's and Sam Smith's. Maybe tomorrow though.

If you check out the LCBO website you'll see it's in a number of stores. It apparently arrived too late for distribution before Xmas but any store can order it as there's plenty in the warehouse and the price is $3.20 which you should enjoy while you can because we'll probably not offer it to the LCBO again so you'll only be able to buy it from us at about $3.95. We do intend to withdraw many of our beers from LCBO seasonal offerrings so Consignment orders will be the only way to get them.

esprit wrote:We do intend to withdraw many of our beers from LCBO seasonal offerrings so Consignment orders will be the only way to get them.

Is this just out of spite? Or do you actually make more money this way? (I can't imagine the volume is the same...)

I assume this is because of their pulling your stuff from the Spring release...?

Does this mean we'll not see Dogfish, Rogue, etc, again at the LCBO?

Thank God for the proximity for New York state.

What a concept:

1) Put a monopoly retailer without consumer interest in control of choosing everything we can access, &
2) have this monopoly frustrate importers into giving up on premium products by running them in circles & wasting their time.

hence,
"We the LCBO didn't give up on Rochefort, Esprit Agencies did!!"

Seems like a deliberate political ploy to Make Everything Dumber.

Why?

General awareness of real, world-class product choice might be a threat to their monopoly, which itself is a form of power. Their persistent ability to say 'no' to us is a subtle form of suggestion, which aims to make Ontarians ever more compliant and unquestioning.

And THAT worries me philosophically... it's way beyond beer.

Any responses to this, you LCBO reps out there?

In regardst to Rochefort, it is in fact true that our suppliers pulled the plug on giving both Rochefort 8 and 10 to the LCBO because they simply ended up with so much U.S. demand (Merchant du Vin of Seattle represents them now) that they couldn't supply the 300-400 cases the LCBO wanted. Having said that, we continue to be frustrated by the ever more demanding requirements to sell something into the seasonal program. They want label compliance, they want case compliance and more paperwork than should ever be required for a one shot order. We can and do make more money selling through Consignment and Private Ordering primarily because 90% of our business is licensees and there are fewer restrictions and demands to sell through these programs. I can sell every bottle of Rochefort 10 I can get my hands on to licensees in Ontario (and other provinces) and can make considerably more money than if I sold it to the LCBO retail. It's a fact of life and one which I've come to terms with. I suppose that part of the problem is that I have offerred the LCBO prices which are simply too low. When my retail price in Ontario is half of what it is in Buffalo, I'm doing something wrong...well, I'm going to stop doing that!

In regards to Chimay Blue labelling, the "Canadian" labels for singles are pinted very few years with a standard "BEST BEFORE" year. Needless to say, this date is of no consequence. I've consumed 30 year old Chimay Blue in Belgium and the stuff was amazing.
For the Gift Pack we use bottles with EURO labels which are in fact vintage-dated. We do this because we are only required to have Canadian-compliant labelling on the "selling unit" which is the gift box itself and that we sticker.
Bottom line is, whenever a Chimay beer arrives in Ontario, it is generally 2-4 months old and as most you know, in a year or two or ten, it will be a very different beer. If you're cellaring, I'd simply write something on the label to remind you of when you bought it so you'll know how old it probably is.