BeerBorg

Originally I was a huge Fan of the Seasonal, in-fact was what I waited for to do my "Donation" to Mr. Beer for forum use and support.

Well Now with the Mess that is Coopers/Mr. Beer I am not as incline to spend my money.

For a can of MB Seasonal it is $32.50 ($24.95 + $7.95 S/H)

If I go to my LHBS I can get a Muntons Nut Brown Ale Kit with Grains, Hops and Yeast for $27 and will make 5 gallons of Nut Brown that I made last winter and was Great beer.

Even if I wanted to be like MB and do simple I could make the kit strait up (they recommend 2# sugar, I would use 2# DME or LME) and get 5 gallons beer for $21 and use the included yeast and no hops

I have never had any of their seasonals. I just never wanted to spend that much money for the amount of beer they produce then have to brew it too. If I am going to spend that kind of money I will go out and buy beer already made.

The Summer Seasonal was the first one I missed (passed on). They recently had a 20% off everything sale, and I missed it. I forgot to try Brew Demon on the last day of their members only thing.

I may buy the Fall Seasonal, don't know.

BTW, I see the neither the Spring nor Summer seasonals have sold out yet. That's a lot different than a couple years ago. I bought two of the Spring White IPA's .... it was pretty good.

FWIW, by the specs, that can looks ready made to add just a pound or so of some Amber DME and maybe some grains and split into a 2 LBK or ~5 gallon batch and make something closer to an actual Nut Brown out of it. I don't want a 50 IBU 6% abv nut brown - that ain't a nut brown. So I would bet you can make decent beer and make the money worth while if you are willing to Frankenstein it. That's what I'd do. But I'm Mr. Frankenbrew. It would be funny to Frankenbrew something back to style.

Not me! I may buy more of the summer seasonal though; I'm pretty pleased how my first batch turned out.

I'm passing. At this point MrB has just left a bad taste in my mouth. No pun intended.

I have considered trying a seasonal since I've never tried them in the past, but I can't justify paying practically $1 a beer, before shipping, when I can consistently brew for around .50 cents a bottle!

The seasonals were ok for me, but I think I just wasn't that good of a MB extract brewer, as others have said they really liked them. I much prefer the AG recipes I've done. Must have been something in my extract process...

Passing. Though is my Saison comes out as I expect it will I may order a few more of those if a decent sale comes up before they are gone.

I will pass also. I was not impressed with their White IPA. And I agree with your thought process on the Munton's kit for $27. I'm sure that will produce a better beer.

To be fair, I did like many of the previous seasonals - especially the Maibock.

I'm just a bit sour on recent events and the way they were handled so I'm voting with my wallet.

Kealia wrote:To be fair, I did like many of the previous seasonals - especially the Maibock.

I'm just a bit sour on recent events and the way they were handled so I'm voting with my wallet.

They gonna get a lot of that, I'm afraid. You reap what you sow.

I was new to MrB and brewing this year. But the Spring White IPA was not good, and frankly, some of the other HMEs have been only OK. I'm not buying.

I'm just a bit sour on recent events and the way they were handled so I'm voting with my wallet.

Ditto here since their screw up with the old Mr. B board. I will spend my money at my LHBS instead.

I liked the previous old Mr. Beer seasonals and I wanted to buy the new ones to give them a chance.

All of a sudden certain users on the Mr. Beer forum start whispering oooh I'm getting new recipes but I can't talk about them. And all of a sudden people start getting prerelease copies of the new stuff but only certain people on the forums. While I wasn't the most active poster I had a registration date older than most peoples and I knew I didn't spend the most directly through them because I could buy refills at my LHBS and save on shipping but I bought at least 2 of the seasonals from their website. How did all these other people get on the inside track?

But then I got put into a financial crunch and my brewing can only happen occasionally. Every body was asking Mr. Beer are you going to do seasonals? And they said something along the lines of "We are doing things but it's super secret so we can't tell you! You'll like what we do though." Then all of a suddden Bam! Seasonals! I hadn't really put money aside because I didn't know anything was coming. I thought about saving up but the $32 and the lack of announcement of the first one put me off. But I still stayed on the forum trying to help newbies.

Then the forum disaster strikes. I start out making a couple of posts telling people to be patient because stuff happens if they would just let us know what's going on it would be great. Then they don't communicate. Except to occasionally say that very specific issuesfor specific issues are fixed. They finally after much hounding say "it'll be fixed by the Holidays and you will love the new built in ecommerce stuff." Myself and others reply to the very threads created by Mr. Beer staff asking for more info. Not a single response. Then somebody(samueld I think but my brain is drawing a blank) posts the most info they have ever posted as well as analogy about a house. That post gets removed. I decided over the weekend to give the forum another chance and still no answers in the tech support forum but damn if they didn't post "We love the forum users so you can buy our seasonals early!"

I feel like Cooper/Mr. Beer has labeled me the stinky kid in class. I know I shouldn't really take it personally and I don't it just feels that way. So no I will not be buy another seasonal nor anything else from them again.

Edit:
Sorry for the rant that we love the forum users just rubbed me the wrong way.