BeerBorg

I just went to take advantage of a 25% off coupon code, and picked the Craft variety 4 pack. When I went to check out, they hit me with 8 bucks shipping. pfffft. So, I figured I'd try to schedule it for the next day through my brew club, and see if the still had the free shipping for orders over 50 bucks ... I don't see the brew club in there anywhere. Is it gone, or I just can't find it?

Yes, it does not exist any longer. It went in our sleep.

They quietly discontinued it a few months ago.

Thanks for the info ... sorry if it's been posted before, I guess I should have searched.

Looks like it's time to put MrBeer in my past and finally try Brew Demon. I like the classic MrB extracts that they sell better, anyway.

It really looks to me that with the Mr Beer community discussion board, and now the brew club ... that they considered their IT budget too high, and cut it out.

It looks like they're out of the free shipping deals as well, which kind of made ordering them still fairly attractive when they put stuff on sale.

I still have my four LBK's, but haven't used them since early 2013, and haven't used any extracts of any kind since then, either. Just fermenter pails, 50lb sacks of grain, a pound here or there of specialty malts, and hop city. I'm a happy camper.

I may get some brew demon for a few easy brews in my LBK's after my vacation. I still have a massive bottle collection, which has been empty for over a year as well ... as I run my AG BIAB beer inventory through six large corny kegs.

Looks like MrB is just a fond memory for me.

One can only hope there is actually a plan in their marketing.

Yup, whomever took the healm when Coopers bought them out is seriously smoking the good stuff!

1) Kill off the forums that provided FREE technical support to both new and seasoned users. Dont listen to the old timers as to what changes need to be made in order to keep them. Im still waiting for them to announce their "awesome new features" that they promised us. Even Mike rarely shows his head anymore - he probably thinks it sucks also.

2) Be bought out by a company that makes 5 gallon kits and equipment yet refuse to market them and let their arch nemesis Brew Demon beat them to the punch.

3) Kill off the Brew Club which kept people who may have migrated to 5 gallon and AG systems still in the fold by shipping their favorites on a regular basis. This was free marketing that pretty much cost them nothing to maintain. I am guessing the new, wonderful software they migrated to did not support this most basic feature.

The brew club was the only thing keeping me ordering from Mr Beer at all. Brew Demon will get my HME business from now on.

It would be interesting to see what Mr Beer sales are like now compared to before the acquisition by Coopers. They seem to have been doing about everything possible to ruin their business model.

Pretty sad. And they don`t seem to be ramping up wholesale either.

docpd wrote:It would be interesting to see what Mr Beer sales are like now compared to before the acquisition by Coopers. They seem to have been doing about everything possible to ruin their business model.

It sure would be interesting to see a before/after comparison. They've even been replaced in many of the national chains like BB&B, which I'm sure accounted for the vast majority of their new customers.

1) Piss off your extremely-loyal repeat customers.
2) Lose your primary means of generating new customers.
3) Wonder WTF happened.

I'm guessing they're firmly on step 3 right about now.
The whole story of the acquisition would make a good case study in business school.

Yes, a very interesting case study for business school. Good lessons-learned for the next generation of business majors.

From what I've been reading and seeing on youtube channels, American beers are pretty big in many parts of Europe. That's likely why Stone is building there. Exports of American beers, espeically IPA's have grown to Europe in the last 5-7 years and I guess that's helped what's going on here as well.

Ya, but thats like having a Canadian girlfriend you met in Niagra Falls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZwXN5OgikA

They have fallen so far so fast.