Fresh Founders Centennial at the LCBO

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:17 pm

Founders has confirmed they have withdrawn from Ontario.

spinrsx · Post by **spinrsx** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:19 pm

sigh

Cass wrote:Founders has confirmed they have withdrawn from Ontario.

icemachine · Post by **icemachine** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 3:31 pm

Cass wrote:Founders has confirmed they have withdrawn from Ontario.

Were they an NAC account?

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:09 pm

No, they were (at least when they launched here) repped by the Bruce Ashley Group.

darmokandjalad · Post by **darmokandjalad** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 10:45 pm

This is disappointing. Oh well, at least I live adjacent to Michigan.

cheechonaleash · Post by **cheechonaleash** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:19 am

Is it warehouse issues that caused this? That's what I read somewhere else

vandutchy · Post by **vandutchy** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:59 pm

Cass wrote:Founders has confirmed they have withdrawn from Ontario.

Thanks Cass for the update although it will be sadly missed at least Red Racer is still here! For how long though is anyone's guess!

cfrancis · Post by **cfrancis** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 10:52 am

Couldn't care about the others. This was my go to everyday IPA. Almost a perfect beer for me.

IPA_Lover · Post by **IPA_Lover** » Mon Aug 25, 2014 9:11 pm

$hitty news! Gotta be some behind the scenes politics. They had to have been very happy with how well the beer has sold through here.

I don't buy the whole "we need it for domestic customers" BS if that's their position.

Droogy · Post by **Droogy** » Mon Aug 25, 2014 11:18 pm

worst news... very disappointed.

Kel Varnsen · Post by **Kel Varnsen** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:18 am

IPA_Lover wrote:$hitty news! Gotta be some behind the scenes politics. They had to have been very happy with how well the beer has sold through here.

I don't buy the whole "we need it for domestic customers" BS if that's their position.

I can buy it. I mean looking at their website they only distribute to around 33 of the US states. Why spend the time and effort to export your beer to another country, dealing with border issues, language issues and the metric system, when you could just expand into California and/or Washington State and not have to deal with any of those issues.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 9:42 am

Selling in Ontario means conforming to the standards here (packaging rules, payment terms, paperwork, etc.). It could certainly be a political thing, but the effort required to sell here is simply not worth it for many breweries.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 9:56 am

Thing is though, they already figured out most of those issues. Surely once you've done it once (or for like, 2 years or whatever) it's easier after that? You already have the proper labels designed and the shipping figured out, etc.

sprague11 · Post by **sprague11** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:26 am

And the LCBO and their antiquated regulations chase out another great American brewer out of the province. Too bad, as the Founders feature was fantastic and everything seemed to move fast, especially the Backwoods Bastard.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:53 am

squeaky wrote:Thing is though, they already figured out most of those issues. Surely once you've done it once (or for like, 2 years or whatever) it's easier after that? You already have the proper labels designed and the shipping figured out, etc.

You're right, but the LCBO has a way of throwing curveballs at you. Even with those things figured out there are some well-publicized policies that don't change - LCBO shippers only (can't arrange shipping yourself), long payment terms (many US brewers are used to C.O.D.), un-refrigerated storage & conditions, having to guarantee sales or the brewery is on the hook for leftovers - the list goes on. At a certain point these just add up to too much of a hassle, when as pointed out earlier they can move volume to another state by having a truck come to your back door and hand over a cheque (obviously oversimplifying things but you know what I mean).