BeerBorg

LBKs are still good small fermenters. There is no reason they could not offer much less expensive AG or PM kits and/or packaged grains targeted right at their size. And a 16Q or 20Qpot. That would give brewers who want to advance in the hobby some cool toys to play with.

Agree.

RickBeer wrote:That's exactly my point - too complicated.

Whatever level you earn in 2015 stays with you in 2016. Whatever you earn in 2016, stays with you in 2017. That's LEVEL.

Points that you earn expire in two years. Has nothing to do with levels.

Kegerator is 60,000 points.

So, let's do the math (again, pointing out how poor this program is designed):

I get 100 points to join.
I spend $75, becoming Silver. I now have 175 points and I am NOW earning 2 points per dollar spent.
I spend another $425, becoming Gold. I now have 850 more points, for a total of (425 x 2) + 175 = 1,025 points.
Since I'm now Gold, I'm earning 4 points per dollar. I spend another $1,000 to earn Platinum, so I now have 1,025 + 4,000 = 5,025 points and I'm earning 8 points per dollar spent.
I am only 54,975 points shy of my Kegerator. At 8 points per dollar, I quickly jump in and spend (53,975 / 8) = $6,745.88.

Yipee! I have now reached 60,000 points and only spent $75+ $425 + $1,000 + 6,745.88 = $8,246.88!

Except... If you spend $75.01 or more on an order, you get an extra point per dollar spent. If you spend $150.01 or more you get 2 points per dollar spent.

If you assume my first order was $75.01, and all future orders are $150.01 or more, then...

100 free points
$75.01 = 100 + 75 + 75 = 250 points total
Next order of $425 earns 850 more PLUS another 850 plus the 250 I have = 1,950 points.
Next order of $1,000 earns 4,000 points PLUS 2,000 bonus points PLUS the 1,950 = 7,950 points.

So I am only 52,050 points away, and with 10 points per dollar (8 plus 2 bonus), I only have to spend $5,205 more!

Total spent $6,525.01! Kegerator is MINE!

FYI - 1 point per dollar is a norm among many loyalty programs.

OMG - that's worse than airfare pricing. Nothing quite like a loyalty program that makes you want to just trying to understand how it works.

KISS, indeed....

mashani wrote:LBKs are still good small fermenters. There is no reason they could not offer much less expensive AG or PM kits and/or packaged grains targeted right at their size. And a 16Q or 20Qpot. That would give brewers who want to advance in the hobby some cool toys to play with.

+1, no doubt. I definitely agree with this! I've hunted all over for 2G-2.5G extract and all grain recipes and then after finding one vendor that does sell them, I eventually realized from reading on the forums that you can just take a 5G-6G recipe and split it between two fermenters. I do need to get one of those bigger pots too.

All of my batches are 5 gallon, split between two Mr. Beer fermenters. I use a 5 gallon stainless steel pot, which costs $19.99. If you don't have a LHBS, AIH does let you order grains in any amount, including as little as an ounce, will mill them for you at no charge, and has a bunch of recipes that you can order - many of mine are those recipes (I pick out my own grains as they are local to me). Many argue to buy a huge pot first, because someday you will. For $19.99, I couldn't pass this up (it was actually $29.99 when I bought it).

I am not trying to defend the quality of the program - it is rather convoluted... Thanks RickBeer for running out that math... but what you left off was the way to get all the free points... Now it won't get you there *that* much faster, but you can earn points for promoting stuff on facebook/twitter/etc. One could max out 15 points a day for promoting stuff, gaining over 5000 points per year... now, you don't need to spend a dime doing this, just time or a bot.

anyway, i'm also not trying to say they nailed the KISS, because they didn't. This isn't the old airline model of a point per dollar... this is the 2015 model of they're going to make you promote the product to really gain any ground. If anyone has every played any game on social media in the last 5 years, this is the same sort of model - welcome to the new incentivizing rewards program model!

It is not simple, but it is designed to offer tidbits of swag for you helping to promote and purchase their products. The new model of reward programs has leaned this way, but then again, why not. Why do they need to give us free stuff just for buying their product? The model isn't to provide kegerator to anyone who spends $1000 a year in product... last month you got nothing for spending money there, now you get some points for doing the same thing, that maybe will get you some crappy swag... sorry you aren't getting a free kegerator for it. Did you expect to?

Also, Mashani - that is a great idea, I wish they would offer a transitional type product to help people move from HMEs to partials to AG... I'm guessing they can't get their pricing competitive??? I don't know, but this would certainly help them potentially hold customers longer...

RickBeer wrote:All of my batches are 5 gallon, split between two Mr. Beer fermenters. I use a 5 gallon stainless steel pot, which costs $19.99. If you don't have a LHBS, AIH does let you order grains in any amount, including as little as an ounce, will mill them for you at no charge, and has a bunch of recipes that you can order - many of mine are those recipes (I pick out my own grains as they are local to me). Many argue to buy a huge pot first, because someday you will. For $19.99, I couldn't pass this up (it was actually $29.99 when I bought it).

I've got a semi-local LHBS (about an hour away or so) but some people's closets are bigger than their brewing supplies area. They've got some stuff but I wasn't impressed at all.

I've seen that pot on their page and that's definitely a good price too. I wonder if there's any problems using that on a electric element kitchen stove? From the reviews it looked like some people were having problems with it but they were using it on a flat surface stove. Looks like it's 12.25" OD, so I guess it might fit in a kitchen sink okay for cooling? Also someone posted that their's leaked through the rives on the handle, they must have had it very full for that to happen I'd think. Still a good buy I'd guess for heating up 2-3G of water and wort.
Thanks for sharing that link.

mashani wrote:LBKs are still good small fermenters. There is no reason they could not offer much less expensive AG or PM kits and/or packaged grains targeted right at their size. And a 16Q or 20Qpot. That would give brewers who want to advance in the hobby some cool toys to play with.

Yeah but lets not forget they don't even give proper instructions for the stuff they actually sell. I wouldn't expect any better for a more "advanced" product.

There be broken.

I gave up on MB the summer I received an email asking if I wanted to buy seven month old liquid yeast by just paying for the shipping. I wrote them back complaining that whatever small percentage of yeast were still clinging to life after seven months would be boiled to death during the delivery. I asked how they could justify offering 'such a deal' to their customers, unbelievable.

TonyKZ1 wrote:

RickBeer wrote:All of my batches are 5 gallon, split between two Mr. Beer fermenters. I use a 5 gallon stainless steel pot, which costs $19.99. If you don't have a LHBS, AIH does let you order grains in any amount, including as little as an ounce, will mill them for you at no charge, and has a bunch of recipes that you can order - many of mine are those recipes (I pick out my own grains as they are local to me). Many argue to buy a huge pot first, because someday you will. For $19.99, I couldn't pass this up (it was actually $29.99 when I bought it).

I've got a semi-local LHBS (about an hour away or so) but some people's closets are bigger than their brewing supplies area. They've got some stuff but I wasn't impressed at all.

I've seen that pot on their page and that's definitely a good price too. I wonder if there's any problems using that on a electric element kitchen stove? From the reviews it looked like some people were having problems with it but they were using it on a flat surface stove. Looks like it's 12.25" OD, so I guess it might fit in a kitchen sink okay for cooling? Also someone posted that their's leaked through the rives on the handle, they must have had it very full for that to happen I'd think. Still a good buy I'd guess for heating up 2-3G of water and wort.
Thanks for sharing that link.

I fill it to 2.5 gallons, then add LME, so maybe it's 3.5 gallons full. I cannot imagine it leaking at the handles. I use a gas stove, can't tell you what an electric element stove would do but the bottom is NOT flat. There is an outer edge, then it flows up to an inner area that is 9 3/8" in diameter. So, if you had an electric burner that measured 10 inches across, the elements would miss the bottom of the pot. Or, a flat surface stove would do the same. Gas flame does not have any issue of course.

It fits in our kitchen sink for cooling just fine. From outside of handle to outside of handle is 15 1/2".

Everything about that reward program looks horrible. It just kind of looks to be grasping at straws. If they were to make it affordable like it used to be, they could make more money in volume alone.

It isn't a rewards program.
It isn't an incentive program.

It's like when your grandma told you that you could grow up to be president someday if you wanted too. Sure you can. It 'could' happen.

We could play "Guess the corporate buzz words that make this a great idea!".
But first, is this a marketing idea that was sold to the execs or a directive from the execs to the marketing department?

I love how at their forum they insist that there are plenty of people that spend $2k+ a year to make the platinum level. Really? If you have that kind of dough you could make be making professional level beer. But I have so little faith in humanity sometimes, I believe there are people that would blow that kind of cash.

If I had an extra 2k to blow on brewing I'd buy me a Zymatic or a 10L or 20L Braumeister.