After many edits and changes to the format and feel of this post I realized I and my staff (now just James) are extremely passionate about our store, our department, and our customers. You (Our loyal customers and in many cases friends) lead our Beer department more than we do. We follow your leads, we search out beers we have never heard of. We bring in beers that surprise us. We can not carry everything, but we try our hardest to carry what you want. After noticing some stock missing of some pretty limited beers that had been opened and half of it purchased, we were disappointed. Disappointed more in the fact that fewer of our customer will now have an honest chance to purchase and taste these Norwegian rarities. Disappointed in that we try hard to obtain these beers and search through 100's of pages of pre-order sheets and websites and emails to actually get them delivered and it took 30 seconds for half of them to go. When these types of beers do come in it is an unexpected joy and highly complicated due to the nature of our business.
Because a store has boxes (cases of beer in this case) on its floor sealed or unsealed does not lend customers the right to search through them. These things are not on a shelf for a reason. The reasons could be endless. The fact that non-employees do not know the reason still does not grant a customer the right to search the boxes and feel free to purchase whatever is inside. Respect and patience is required in this industry on all sides. We did in fact receive a small amount of HaandBryggeriet Sweet & Sour, Haandbakk, and Dark Force Reserva. They were received with quite a few beers from the Shelton Bros. portfolio. As these orders are inconsistent, our store (as most) does not always have adequate room or shelf space for these items or in even space to hold these beers until we made space (which I am doing today so we can release them next weekend).
Half of our stock of Sweet & Sour and Dark Force Reserva now lies in an individuals cellar somewhere waiting to be opened or traded. Because asking questions or the virtue of patience had a lapse, our customers chances to try these beers has been cut in half. These beers are highly limited and extremely hard to get a hold of for us, and understandably our customers. We always put our limited items on the shelf (unlike some of our competitors who wait until the week of GABF). Make no mistake, we do cellar products. We have never cellared any beer beer without giving you, the customers, a chance to purchase it first.
I (as the buyer for Lukas) am happy to be able to carry such a wide variety of beers. I am extremely happy to be able to receive beer that people will search hard for. I am a believer in that like minded groups can police themselves. Being forced to buy beers one bottle at a time is not a business plan that works well for us or our customers. Lukas has rarely implemented bottle limits. To my joy there have been very few complications to this. I have seen customers take everything we have off a shelf but the majority of time it seems good beer drinkers like to "share the love". We will continue our Special Releases on Fridays and Saturdays because this method seems to work for us and most of our customers. You can be assured everything we receive goes the shelf within a week or two. At least you know when and where Limited and Rare beers will be released and at what time. It takes less effort to check this Blog than digging through back stocked cases on the floor of retail stores.
Thank you all for your continued business, support and input. Keep an eye on the blog for more info about our releases next week!
