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TripleSixHoppia

Well-Known Member
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Kentucky
I have worked at a Beer Advocate A+ rated liquor store and A+ rated craft beer bar. I no longer work at these places so feel free to ask anything.

Topics of Discussion
  • Bootlegging
  • Being drunk at work
  • Lying to customers
  • Why we hate craft beer people
  • Debaucherous things done at work
  • ect ect
 
Idk if your liquor store ever did any out of distro sales, but if they did, what's the point of it? The profits can't be that high given the cost of trading, driving, shipping, etc. Does the traffic brought in or the loyalty of reg customers make up for the low(or no) profit made from selling out of distro beer?

If your liquor store didn't do this then the question is withdrawn
 
Does it give you pleasure when some obvious n00b comes in and asks for Fou Foune, which you know he just read about and wants to trade for Dave or Rare, and you deny him when you knowingly have 6 in the back room? I mean do you and your co-workers ACTIVELY make fun of him, or do you just give like winks and silent nods to each other?

Do you snicker when you see someone buy a DIPA you know for a fact has been in your cooler for 4 months?

Lastly, A/S/L?
 
Bootlegging
There was a time and place when Cantillon wasn't as highly sought after. At the time, Shelton Bros pulled their distribution from our state. So what we use to do is buy it from a neighboring state. He had a good distributor friend that's territory was very close to that state. We would pay him to buy cases and cases of Cantillon and bring it with him on our next truck order. Same thing for other beers. If we knew some people were traveling we would just ask them to pick us up cases and we would cash them out at the store. KBS, Breakfast Stout, Nugget Nectar, Hop Wallop, Gumball Head, and things like that we would run through. We were buying at retail, so the markup was pretty substantial. If we were getting it a 10.99, we would mark it up to 15.99ish. If it was something like Breakfast Stout it would probably have been 2x retail. But most of our clients were well off. And the stuff we were providing would have been at closest 3 hours away.

The Cantillon we would keep on the shelf. Pretty much no one at the time knew what it was, even ABC. It was like our special beer. We probably split 1 a week on lunch breaks. I can't tell you how many Fou' Founes we drank in the cooler. ****. If only I knew at the time.

The owners were oblivious to what we were doing. We were a monster store. All they knew is we would ask for money and it would be returned 2x what we took in the matter of a weekend, so they didn't give a ****.

Our back room was ****ing stupid. We had vintage Drie, Dark Lord verticals, old Fantomes, older lambic we were saving for ourselves, tons of ****. It was all on a top shelf, pushed to the back with shitty cheap wine boxes in front of them. That is also where we kept our rare bourbon and wine. Stuff we wanted to buy, but could only afford a bottle or so a week. If you were a regular at our store and were cool, you knew to ask if there was anything new. I would tell them hold up, go into the back and bring them out something. They would never even ask the price. They were just so happy we had things no one else did. We were also good at spotting BAs from a mile away. You just start talking to them and you can tell. These dudes would start out with maybe 2 six packs in their cart. By the time I was done with them, they'd be $200 deep. "Dude, you need to check this out. It's got such and such rating on BA, ad nauseam with details." They would 90% of the time buy whatever I sold them. Then I would tell them to hold up, disappear in the back and come back with a limited release bootle. Like a 2 year old Dark Lord or something. Boom, next day dude has written a 8 paragraph 5/5 rating on BA.

Sadly the last of the old boys is gone and the store has changed ownership 2-3 times. So no more gems.
 
Have you ever lied to a customer about the freshness of a product or seen another co-worker do it?

Not at our store. That was one of our things. We would try to only order enough product to push it out before it was past due. We sent a shipment of stone back that was almost at "Best By" at the time of shipment.

Things I would lie about, liking a beer, and if we have "such and such bottle"
 
Not at our store. That was one of our things. We would try to only order enough product to push it out before it was past due. We sent a shipment of stone back that was almost at "Best By" at the time of shipment.

Things I would lie about, liking a beer, and if we have "such and such bottle"

What about at the bar? If someone asked when the keg was tapped would you ever say "yesterday, super fresh" even though it was probably on for a few months or anything like that?
 
What about at the bar? If someone asked when the keg was tapped would you ever say "yesterday, super fresh" even though it was probably on for a few months or anything like that?

Never. I would assume that others would do this. Our reputation at the bar was too good to **** up. We couldn't keep IPAs on tap. If we got a half barrel of really killer IPA, we could flip it in 2-3 days. And we are in a relatively small town.
 
Hahahahaha Dark Lord verticals.


XGv0I4A.gif
 
Idk if your liquor store ever did any out of distro sales, but if they did, what's the point of it? The profits can't be that high given the cost of trading, driving, shipping, etc. Does the traffic brought in or the loyalty of reg customers make up for the low(or no) profit made from selling out of distro beer?

We got hooked up by customers and distros that would bring us stuff at retail cost. We would send them with cash. Most of the time they were going anyway. We would usually hook them up with a bottle or deep discount on their purchase.

But think about it. We were buying at retail, and charging 1.5 to 2x the cost. A limited 10.99 4 pack we were selling for 20. You would have to sell at least 30 cases of Budweiser to make the same profit.

And yes the loyalty was a big part. We would probably get $500-1000 a week in sales off of people who read about us on BA and just stopped in. Most of them were driving down the highway and would have passed us on any other day.
 
Does it give you pleasure when some obvious n00b comes in and asks for Fou Foune, which you know he just read about and wants to trade for Dave or Rare, and you deny him when you knowingly have 6 in the back room? I mean do you and your co-workers ACTIVELY make fun of him, or do you just give like winks and silent nods to each other?

Lastly, A/S/L?

Last time we had Fou Foune at the bar, only the employees got to buy it. We split 2 cases between 4 of us. But yes. The worst is when one of these beers gets into a non-beer publication. Jesus ****, when Westy Bricks were out, I hated everyone. Once those articles came out about it we had non stop calls. It took us 2 hours to sell 80 bricks. It took 2 months for multiple calls a day to stop. "Do you have any West er let her in, it's the best beer in the world." One of the doctors here read about the beer in NYT times or something. He walked into our store and demanded we sell the beer to him. He didn't believe it had sold out in a couple hours 2 weeks before. Also the Trappist ****ed us and we made about a dollar profit per brick. The time we invested in that was not worth the return.

Under 30/M/USA
 
did you ever mark up beer on the spot to people you didn't like


No. All of our beer was logged in a POS system. It would be damn near impossible to change it on the fly. We do give discounts to people we do like. If you are a really cool regular you might get free samples (Legally have to charge for samples in our state), or I might have forgot a pint off your tab.
 
We got hooked up by customers and distros that would bring us stuff at retail cost. We would send them with cash. Most of the time they were going anyway. We would usually hook them up with a bottle or deep discount on their purchase.

But think about it. We were buying at retail, and charging 1.5 to 2x the cost. A limited 10.99 4 pack we were selling for 20. You would have to sell at least 30 cases of Budweiser to make the same profit.

And yes the loyalty was a big part. We would probably get $500-1000 a week in sales off of people who read about us on BA and just stopped in. Most of them were driving down the highway and would have passed us on any other day.
In your case you were offloading the gas/time onto someone else, so it makes more sense. If you were the ones driving and getting it the calculus would be different.
 
how sauced did you guys get? Any issues?

The only issue I ever had was having to count the drawer twice because the numbers weren't matching up. I did this while in college and freshly out of college, so my tolerance was HIGH.

Wine reps would get you the most ****ed up. They had so many products in their portfolio, they would have you try about everything. On average they would bring in 10-20 wines for us to try. All small pours, but they add up quick.

The bar was the craziest. Our management operated on the philosophy of, "As long as it's not a problem, we don't care." In a six hour shift I might have three 16oz beers. But there have been some days where I've been ****ed up. We ran on cash tips, and if the customer didn't have cash they would tip us in beer. We also had a lot of customers that would come in with beer they had picked up during their travels. Our customers loved us so much they basically shoved beers in our face. It was a regular occurrence on a saturday night to have 4-5 guys split about ten 750ml bottles. And they would pour me about 6oz out of each one.

Average night 3 16oz beers - Crazy Saturday, maybe 6-7
 

What about the wet rag question? I'll assume you're making a video demonstration.

Follow-up: How did it feel knowing, no matter how much expertise you had or how well you did your job, you may as well have been "the help" to all the rich ****s buying cases of Bordeaux?
 
Follow-up: How did it feel knowing, no matter how much expertise you had or how well you did your job, you may as well have been "the help" to all the rich ****s buying cases of Bordeaux?

Americans can't afford first growths anymore.

We do all right doe
oqDV8lC.jpg


Good to have industry friends.


Edit: Honestly I never cleaned the bar. The girls did. They made a **** load more in tips so I don't feel that bad.
 
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I worked at a notorious large liquor store near downtown Minneapolis and the U of MN in my early-mid 20s. That's what started my craft beer obsession. This was about 8-10 years ago, so craft beer was completely different back then, but some things were the same. My biggest annoyances would be people who:

1. Thought you sold "everything." From Fat Tire (before it actually was sold here) to Westy to Spotted Cow, to everything in between, people thought we carried it. We had a reputation for carrying every beer, wine, and liquor available in the state (which was true at the time), but sorry, some stuff just isn't sold here, and we can't special order it if it's not available through our distributor. People would NOT believe you when you told them this. They thought you were lying, or hoarding it in the back, or stupid, or whatever.

2. Drunk people. Not the panhandling drunks off the street, although they were definitely annoying, but people who had just gotten lit up across the street (it's a pretty busy nightlife area) and wanted to goof around in the aisles, or crack a ton of jokes with you in front of their friends during your busiest time, or get more wasted off wine and scotch samples. I get it, you're drunk and having a fun night out, but 99% of the people in here are sober and are just trying to get their shopping done. It was a fairly upscale place and a lot of our customers were older and not in that mood. Stay out of the way and don't hassle me when I'm working.

3. People who try to out-expert you OR people who are too intimidated to ask questions or listen to recommendations when you give them. I don't care if you don't know what an IPA or a stout is, that's what I'm here for, just ask me about them. If you are already an expert and want to shoot the ****, that's great, but don't try to engage in some nerd wrestling match with me, and don't try to "top" me when you don't know what you're talking about. Just admit you don't know beer yet, and I'd be happy to tell you what I like. I'm not going to judge you, I hardly knew **** back then either.

4. Dudes who held 12 packs by one handle (often with just a finger to show off). Those ****ers rip easily.

5. People who "know the owner." Of course you do, he's a drunk.
 
Is there money in craft beer? Broad question, I know. But in general, do retail shop or bar owners make enough to account for working so many hours? I feel like the suits at the distributors really make the coin in the industry.
 
Is there money in craft beer? Broad question, I know. But in general, do retail shop or bar owners make enough to account for working so many hours? I feel like the suits at the distributors really make the coin in the industry.

I have never been closely affiliated with a craft bar, but my Grandmother only recently sold the (dive) bar she'd owned for three decades. I can tell you that any competently operated bar may as well be a printing press. The trick is being able to put up with all kinds of ****.
 
Bootlegging
There was a time and place when Cantillon wasn't as highly sought after. At the time, Shelton Bros pulled their distribution from our state. So what we use to do is buy it from a neighboring state. He had a good distributor friend that's territory was very close to that state. We would pay him to buy cases and cases of Cantillon and bring it with him on our next truck order. Same thing for other beers. If we knew some people were traveling we would just ask them to pick us up cases and we would cash them out at the store. KBS, Breakfast Stout, Nugget Nectar, Hop Wallop, Gumball Head, and things like that we would run through. We were buying at retail, so the markup was pretty substantial. If we were getting it a 10.99, we would mark it up to 15.99ish. If it was something like Breakfast Stout it would probably have been 2x retail. But most of our clients were well off. And the stuff we were providing would have been at closest 3 hours away.

The Cantillon we would keep on the shelf. Pretty much no one at the time knew what it was, even ABC. It was like our special beer. We probably split 1 a week on lunch breaks. I can't tell you how many Fou' Founes we drank in the cooler. ****. If only I knew at the time.

The owners were oblivious to what we were doing. We were a monster store. All they knew is we would ask for money and it would be returned 2x what we took in the matter of a weekend, so they didn't give a ****.

Our back room was ****ing stupid. We had vintage Drie, Dark Lord verticals, old Fantomes, older lambic we were saving for ourselves, tons of ****. It was all on a top shelf, pushed to the back with shitty cheap wine boxes in front of them. That is also where we kept our rare bourbon and wine. Stuff we wanted to buy, but could only afford a bottle or so a week. If you were a regular at our store and were cool, you knew to ask if there was anything new. I would tell them hold up, go into the back and bring them out something. They would never even ask the price. They were just so happy we had things no one else did. We were also good at spotting BAs from a mile away. You just start talking to them and you can tell. These dudes would start out with maybe 2 six packs in their cart. By the time I was done with them, they'd be $200 deep. "Dude, you need to check this out. It's got such and such rating on BA, ad nauseam with details." They would 90% of the time buy whatever I sold them. Then I would tell them to hold up, disappear in the back and come back with a limited release bootle. Like a 2 year old Dark Lord or something. Boom, next day dude has written a 8 paragraph 5/5 rating on BA.

Sadly the last of the old boys is gone and the store has changed ownership 2-3 times. So no more gems.
What do you think about limited releases only being sold to "favorite customers" and people who know the employees?
 
Is there money in craft beer? Broad question, I know. But in general, do retail shop or bar owners make enough to account for working so many hours? I feel like the suits at the distributors really make the coin in the industry.

The margins in craft beer are better than macro, but beer overall aren't that great. Wine and small batch spirits tend to make more money.
 
I have never been closely affiliated with a craft bar, but my Grandmother only recently sold the (dive) bar she'd owned for three decades. I can tell you that any competently operated bar may as well be a printing press. The trick is being able to put up with all kinds of ****.
Yeah, it's funny, but bars never really seem to close, and when they do, it's never for financial reasons.
 
What do you think about limited releases only being sold to "favorite customers" and people who know the employees?

Well, let me answer this with a story. The bar I used to work at got 1 case of BCBS and the BW. At 11:00am our manager gets a frantic call from the Bud distributor. "You need to meet me in the back and lock the door behind you. People are literally chasing me from store to store." So she met him and let him in. She starts checking him in and people started pounding on the door. She goes and tells them we don't open till noon. "Well, we know you have bourbon county, you should just sell it to us now." The continued to beat on the door while she was going through the opening process. If I would have been there, I wouldn't have sold a single bottle to any of them.

So, by the way a percentage of the craft beer drinkers act, I understand it completely. People come from all over and just cause a **** show. Most of them are from out of town and don't bring any business to your store anyway. So we always tried to hook up our regulars.
 
Is there money in craft beer? Broad question, I know. But in general, do retail shop or bar owners make enough to account for working so many hours? I feel like the suits at the distributors really make the coin in the industry.

Depends on how the store is set up. Our owners were pretty much 100% hands off at the bar. They were just a financial backing. Craft makes so much more money than Macro. I don't see why anyone ****s with a budweiser tap. You're making something like $0.50 a glass on those products. The market here has the beer prices really low. Where we make 3-4 bucks profit a pint.
 
Well, let me answer this with a story. The bar I used to work at got 1 case of BCBS and the BW. At 11:00am our manager gets a frantic call from the Bud distributor. "You need to meet me in the back and lock the door behind you. People are literally chasing me from store to store." So she met him and let him in. She starts checking him in and people started pounding on the door. She goes and tells them we don't open till noon. "Well, we know you have bourbon county, you should just sell it to us now." The continued to beat on the door while she was going through the opening process. If I would have been there, I wouldn't have sold a single bottle to any of them.

So, by the way a percentage of the craft beer drinkers act, I understand it completely. People come from all over and just cause a **** show. Most of them are from out of town and don't bring any business to your store anyway. So we always tried to hook up our regulars.
In that case, for sure. The BCBS craze this year was exceptional. I just hate when a case or two of Abyss or something comes in and they won't sell it to me because I'm not their buddy.
 
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