Mr. Beer loyalty

[FedoraDave]

I'm not sorry to abandon the Mr. Beer community. Their "upgrade" is an absolute fiasco, but they've made their bed and now they must lie in it. I'm content to be here (thanks, Louie, for creating this place; I love it!), especially since so many of the "old hands" from the MB site have migrated. And thanks, Beer-lord, for the email letting me know this place was up and running.

But here's the thing....

I started with Mr. Beer. That alone wouldn't demand product loyalty, but I've come to really enjoy being able to take just an hour on a Sunday morning and brew up a good quality beer. I prefer my original AG recipes, naturally, but having the variety of the LBK batches, along with the ease of preparation is a plus for me. I wouldn't want to split extract kits, or do 2.5 gallon BIABs two weeks out of three.

So I guess I'll keep my Homebrew Club account active and stick with it, even though I have nothing but contempt for the way they mishandled the community board.

I hate to treat them as just another supplier, but I guess they did it to themselves.

[Beer-lord]

I hear ya Dave. In these hot summer months, doing 4 hours in the heat for a beer is tough but I'm just not pleased with the quality of Mr. Beer anymore. My tastes have changed and I do enjoy the tweaking and playing with recipes even if it takes me 4 hours. I may still do extract but doubt I'll do any more Mr. Beer though I may do some partial extracts from time to time.

But, this decision has nothing to do with their forum at all though that is a total disaster I doubt they'll make their way out of. I do hope the Fans forum is in better shape though.

In the meantime, this is a great place to make a new start and might be time for Dave to get a new hat!

[duff]

I liked the Mr. Beer forums. It was a good place to go that had fairly smart people and you were free to talk about most any type of brewing without getting a lot of negative people. I started out with the Mr. Beer kit and I enjoyed it. It encouraged me to get more serious about brewing my own beer. I encouraged other people to use the Mr. Beer products for smaller batches even if it was just the lbk. Unfortunately 2 big things have happened since the Coopers takeover. A price jump and the current forum fiasco. It's like they don't care about keeping customers any more. It seems like they want to go for the spontaneous purchaser. I am not sure what they are trying to do but it seems like they don't want me around.

[Beer-lord]

I was just wondering if anyone from Mr. Beer has visited this forum. I think it might put a fire somewhere if they did.

Louie, you should get their forum working for them........for a good payment though.

[Brewbirds]

My hero THE HAT, first let me say how happy I am that you have brought your wisdom, humor and philosophy to the New Land.
It seems like most of us started with Mr. Beer kits as gifts or sale finds and found the MB forum early which I think is why we are so tight knit. There is/was an atmosphere of loyalty on the old forum for helping/advising new Mr. Beer brewers from everyone who chose to stay on that forum even as they moved on to other brewing methods.
The community we have is made of people who simply have a sharing personality and appreciate that common ground we came from and enjoy discussing our experiences as we learned new things. We are a mix of new Mr. Beer brewers, extract brewers all grain brewers but the atmosphere and philosophy remains the same... ask away...how are things with you...what has tickled your funny bone lately...does this recipe look right etc.?

There is just no other group of people on other forums that are willing to invest the amount of time and caring for fellow members. We are a special Bunch of folks and I am so glad that the chaos of the whole MB disaster hasn't sent all of us sailing to the four winds.

I can't thank LM enough for the work he has done and am frankly embarrassed to be here now only after the MB disaster because I never knew this was a forum, I kept seeing posts about the Taproom but, frankly, didn't have a clue what it was. I hope we are not keeping him up nights now that there is a new rush to the BeerBorg.

Any body who still uses the MB products should not feel hostility from these fine people because all we are upset about is the IT stuff they did. I hope they will still see that we are helping and encouraging brewers no matter what product or method they are using.

[joechianti]

I think most of us have those same mixed feelings. I feel a lot of gratitude to Mr Beer, but after learning how to brew without the training wheels, so to speak, the only reason I still use the HME's is because I already have them from so many half price sales. Occasionally I do appreciate the super easy batches, but overall, I get more personal satisfaction from AG batches, even if it means more time and effort. I guess if we were honest about it, even though at first we were helping new Mr Beer customers to succeed with the refills and recipes, later on we were in some ways literally taking Mr Beer customers and teaching them to stop being Mr Beer customers. Maybe they really did want to make the forum less powerful to members for that reason. We'll probably never know. Corporate mentality can be much like the mafia when it comes to open and frank communication. They always have to "protect their interest", or whatever they're protecting. It's nice to be a nobody so you can speak freely what's on your mind. I love being a nobody. I hope I can become more of a failure every day until I eventually get so good at it that I fail to die. That would be cool.

[Kealia]

Hey Dave,

If you really want to vote with your wallet here you should try out the Brew Demon stuff. Remember that it's the old MrB recipes/extracts so you know what you'd be getting into and you'd be pointing your dollars elsewhere.

I'm not saying you *should* or judging you if you don't - just pointing out an option for ya. Plus, I've seen the LBC (Little Brown Conical?)....it's kinda neat. If they would create a valve on the bottom to dump the trub and yeast I'd be all over one.

[FrozenInTime]

I'm as loyal to them as they are to us. They consistantly ignore our questions just to have Diane post some goofy stuff trying to grab our attention. Bah humbug, I see through her crap. I enjoy my all grain recipes even though I'm a grain noob. If I ever wanted to brew malt kits again, should say when, it's nice to crank a batch out quickly that taste good. Because of the shitty way MrB has treated us, I mean come-on, have the stones to answer our questions, I will not order from them again. Especially since Brew Demon sells all the old HMEs MrB abandoned when they sold out to a foriegn company. Next time I order a kit, it will be from then as I would like to try the conical fermentor they have. Like mentioned, a valve on the botton to dump the trub would be awesome but I think we're looking at cost.

Dave, try Brew Demon, I bet they would be more than happy to act as your brew club. Their HMEs are bound to be good after all, those are the HMEs most of us started with and grew to love. Coopers... ehhh, not so much.

[LouieMacGoo]

the LBC (Little Brown Conical?)....it's kinda neat. If they would create a valve on the bottom to dump the trub and yeast I'd be all over one.

Just an FYI they are working on a trub dump for the bottom and hope to have it ready for the holidays.

As for Mr. Beer, I completely understand how everyone is feeling and I too have mixed emotions about it but I do have to say I kind of saw this coming and when the first posts about BrewDemon showed up and were so quickly removed and notices of "legal reasons" came up as the excuse for removal and censoring of the name appeared it really gave me pause to think about what was really happening. So I started asking questions from various resources and found that there has been a lot of unrest within the company with the Cooper "take over" and part of that had to do with increasing the control over the forum by linking it with your customer profile and limiting access based on your status. I had a strong feeling that this "Radical upgrade" when they announced it might be the first real steps of increasing that control and based on how their previous upgrade went I didnt have warm fuzzy feeling about it.

Coincidentally, some of you may remember the "Spam issues" I experienced with the site at the beginning of the year, well there seemed to be an increase in traffic that originated in Australlia during that time. I have no proof of any sabotage but it was a strong coincidence that it was happening at the same time. I have since taken specific measures to prevent that from happening again.

So right now I could not be more pleased with Mr. Beer, not because the totally dumped on all the forum goers and the total lack of communication, but because it gave us this opportunity to create something new that doesn't have the arbitrary restrictions set by any company trying to make a profit at any expense.

I am looking forward now and will only look back for the lessons learned.

[FrozenInTime]

Thanks Louie! IF b/demon does put the trub dump valve on the bottom, I will definately order a couple.

[Gymrat]

I always recommend to people to start out with a Mr Beer kit. I defend them on other sites. That is as far as my loyalty goes. I was ready to leave the forum a long time ago. Dave you started brewing shortly after I did. We learned together along with others. That was the only reason I stuck around.

[John Sand]

What they said.
I'm glad that MrB gave me a start brewing. I admire the business concept: simplifying brewing with style. I have not enjoyed great success with their HMEs or LBKs. I'm done with LBKs, I may still use their HMEs for convenience. But I too have branched out to AG and other extract kits. I have two MrB HMEs fermenting or conditioning now. If they are really good, I may order more. But the difficulty of the new forum was too much. I'm glad you all came here, I would have missed the company.

[BigPapaG]

The MB products are good, heck, the Coopers branded products are good as well..

I would have no reservations using them, either as they exist or in combination with a custom brew I might be inclined to whip up!

And their customer service has always been Second-to-None!

I will no doubt remain a customer, but given the current state of the forum app, I am concerned that their e-commerce app might be a challenge as well.

Be that as it may, I'm sure the company that is doing the web development for them is behind a pretty large eight ball right now!

I hope they keep their 800# as that is what I would probably use to order down the road.

[DS Brewery]

It is great to see Dave, Joe and many other of the Mr Beer Group. I think this will be a great place to hang out and exchange ideas.

[SelfFueled]

\
Be that as it may, I'm sure the company that is doing the web development for them is behind a pretty large eight ball right now!

\

There is noway an outside company is designing and making that forum happen.
If so, they would have reverted back to the original.

Also if so, that outside company will be looking at a multi million dollar lawsuit for lost customer and lost future sales. :opps:
It is doing damage

Mr Beer has to be doing that in house, and the people actually doing the labor must not have
any experience on design.
Like I mentioned before, they must have the guy that handles paper shredding or envelope stuffing doing all the forum work.