BeerBorg

What a disappointment my beer kits just arrived. I can not believe that UPS even delivered it. The package arrived so damaged!! The box was totally opened, the grains sacks ripped grain spilling out and no hops. Think this is the last time I order kits from Northern. I just hope they make good on this!!

Out of curiosity - why the anger towards Northern Brewer and not UPS?

Wow, I'm surprised. One time they sent me the wrong hops in my kit, but other than that I've been very pleased with them, and would go so far as to say they are my favorite kit supplier. But I sure do understand your disappointment and frustration. It's annoying beyond belief to look forward to a brew day and then have something like that happen. Hard to RDWHAHB under these circumstances, but I hope there's something in your pipeline so you can at least do the HAHB part.

Both, the last order I got from Northern was also damaged. Both were poorly packaged. Why would you pack 20 pounds of grain in a simple cardboard box, without something added to prevent the grain from moving? The first one was just general supplies and a couple of books. I am going to weigh out the grains. Now that I have calmed down a bit it does not look like a lot of grain was lost.

But damaged is damaged. I would take pics if you haven't already so show them how it arrived.
And I would expect them to replace it 100%. Maybe you can use these grains for another batch (silver lining)?

I've not ordered from them in over a year but bought a number of kits from them with no problems.
First, keep the box, take pictures and call NB. They can make a claim to UPS, send you what you need and maybe even make UPS pay for it (since they are a huge shipper, UPS will kiss arse). But, you can't call UPS, as the complaint has to come from the shipper.
I am very sure NB will make good on it.

Northern and Midwest are owned by the same company, and I believe they were merging the fulfillment operations, perhaps they've cut costs (packaging) without realizing the impact.

I deal with shipping UPS daily and when I package parts for a customer, they get packaged like I want to see when I receive a package. As B-L said it is on the shipper to start a claim, but if you send them the pictures and description of the package as rec'd , they will put the ball in motion and hopefully replace your order complete and figure out they need to better package orders. The way I see it is, its half on them and half on UPS, better packaging but also better handling!

Just heard from Northern. They are replacing both kits.

I knew they would and you get to keep the kit you did get. Win, win, win so brew, brew, brew.

The replacements have arrived in great shape. Now to decide which to brew first.

Kiwi Express or Cascade Mountains West Coast Imperial IPA

Hey how do you set a poll up??

I'm glad you had a make-good on this. Like Alb, I've ordered stuff from NB in the past (quite frequently until I found an LHBS), and never had any problems at all with quality of packaging or getting everything I ordered.

Sorry you had such a bad experience.

ive not ordered from NB in awhile but every kit ive ordered from them has been well packed, arrived on time, and everything about NB has been great for me. UPS sucks major donkey butt. they will steal from boxes...destroy boxes.. lose boxes... treat them like basket balls etc. if you ever get another like this, save the rage for UPS and simply let NB support know so they can fix things. I would let UPS know too so they can maybe, just maybe, fix their handling issues. (yeah right)

I have nothing bad to say about NB and I am a very critical person.

You wanna hear dumb shipping tricks.

We needed a replacement globe for the light fixture in BB2's closet and couldn't find one to fit so we just ordered a new fixture from Amazon that had the same sized globe.

They shipped it to us by slapping a label onto the manufacturers packaging, no box and no packing material.

Of course it arrived with globe shattered into a million pieces so BB2 made a claim to get a replacement and specifically stated that it was not properly packaged.

They shipped the replacement the exact same way and DUH the globe was shattered into a million pieces.

This from Amazon of all places.

Brewbirds wrote:You wanna hear dumb shipping tricks.

We needed a replacement globe for the light fixture in BB2's closet and couldn't find one to fit so we just ordered a new fixture from Amazon that had the same sized globe.

They shipped it to us by slapping a label onto the manufacturers packaging, no box and no packing material.

Of course it arrived with globe shattered into a million pieces so BB2 made a claim to get a replacement and specifically stated that it was not properly packaged.

They shipped the replacement the exact same way and DUH the globe was shattered into a million pieces.

This from Amazon of all places.

That's just pants-on-head stupid.