Everyone’s A Critic
Categories: General beer discussions
Written By: THFBeer_nate
Unsolicited advice or criticism is far from palatable. I am quite sure you have been on the receiving end of unrequested commentary, and did not relish the moment, regardless of the truth of the critique. However, when one sets their product afloat in the market place, criticism is inevitable. In that sense, any brewer who puts his/her product in the hands of the consumer may as well accept the fact that they are pandering for more than just cash, they are fetching feedback. Am I wrong? Beer Advocate and Rate Beer just might agree.
What is a brewer to do then? Accept the “everybody’s a critic” phenom as a blessing or a curse.
I have a few thoughts on the matter.
In a recent review, Mike objectively reviewed a line of beers, walking a tight line between truthfulness and demagoguery. Here at Thank Heaven for Beer we revere those who create our favorite beverage and never desire to insult a brewer while reviewing their product. In his review of St. Arnold Brewery, while he found some of their beers refreshing, Mike honestly stated that one beer in particular, the Oktoberfest, was a sink worthy beer and stated why he rendered such judgment. The breweries PR/Marketing guy responded with a sublte air of offense. I was a little surprised.
Graceful acceptance of criticism goes a long way in roping in the respect of the critic. If I ask a friend, “what do you think of this home brew,” and he responds, “It isn’t your best…it is forgettable” (which is actual feedback I received one time), I have two options: 1)I can say, “thanks for your honesty, try this one, you may like it better” or I can say 2) “Get out of my house, you ungrateful mooch.”
Reaction one allows for a preserved relationship and the opportunity to adjust future brews while option two preserves the relationship and spurs interest in future opportunities to taste my product. While the St. Arnold rep wasn’t a complete jerk, he seemed to lean more toward the former response.
Over the days following Mike’s St. Arnold review, as I was soaking in the scenario, I read an interesting review of Samuel Adams’ Cranberry Lambic at MikeLovesBeer.com. The Cranberry Lambic did not fare well in the scrutinizing eyes of MikeLovesBeer, but like any tactful critic, MikeLovesBeer was far from incendiary, and stated that the other brews in the Sampler pack that contained the “Lambic” were much better. Interestingly, in the comments section every commenter agreed with Mike: The Lambic needs to go. Doing a little research I was intrigued to find that since its inceptions, Sam Adams’ Cranberry Lambic has garnered primarily negative feedback.
One has to wonder if the opulence of unfavorable reactions reaches the ears of the Samuel Adams marketing team or if the ears are deaf; that is, Sam Adams is unconcerned with the experiences of their customers. I legitimately wondered if Sam Adams valued the Lambic more so than the loyalty of their customers. Mike and I both respect Sam Adams and love several of their beers; no disrespect is intended.
While pondering this further, I came across an interesting commercial aired by the Pizza Delivery Chain Dominoes. Here is a link to view a video of Dominoes’ humble plan. In essence, the commercial states that Dominoes collected negative feedback from customers, and, rather than sweeping it under the rug, put it in the trophy case and made a commitment to right the perceived wrongs of their customers. What a concept! Dominoes flaunts reviews that deride the pizza with comments like “the sauce tasted like ketchup,” promising a better sauce. It will be interesting to see how Dominoes fares as it remakes itself with the word of the critics in mind.
Perhaps the brewing and craft beer industry could learn a bit from Dominoes. Would it be catastrophic for Sam Adams to remove the ill favored Cranberry Lambic from their Winter sampler pack? I don’t know…that Lambic is preventing me from picking up a case. I know how hard it is to let go of some thing that was birthed from the fruits of creativity. As a homebrewer, my beers are little treasures that I tend to be emotionally attached to and negative feedback hurts: But it helps.
As an aspiring brewer, I hope that I let my unsolicited advice sink in before my pride does. I hope that I hold on open ear to my future consumers, because Lord knows, I’m not always right! A bit of humble pizza pie goes a long way, and a humble, non-knee-jerk response goes conceivably a tad further.
Please share your thoughts!
January 12th, 2010 at 4:35 am
I have to say, I don’t understand why that Cranberry “Lambic” still exists. I don’t know anybody, from beer geek to Bud drinker, who will touch that thing. I guess you could probably cook something with it, but I’m not willing to find out. No matter how badly I want some Old Fezziwig, I won’t suffer through the Cranberry Lambic to get to it.
The reviews are all pretty bad, yet they still pump it out year after year. Maybe they know something that we don’t. Maybe there’s an entire market of people who buy the winter pack solely for the Cranberry Lambic. Somehow I doubt it.
If your reviews don’t ruffle feathers from time to time, you’re simply not doing your job. If you are positive in every review, you’re much more lucky than I am in making your beer selections. The reaction of the person you’re being critical of really defines whether I want to do business with them or not. I thought the marketing guy’s comment (be clear that this was not an official brewery response) was more informative than defensive, so no harm done. You can always look up Tomme Arthur for examples of the wrong ways to handle criticism.
January 12th, 2010 at 5:15 am
Thanks for the comment Howard. You are right, we are doing a disservice to the brewer if we review every beer with tongue in cheek positive insincerity. That said, we still try not to be nasty (try being the operative word).
I’m glad you thought the PR was simply informative. A second opinion is always good for me, and his second comment was more relaxed. I enjoyed a recent personal story of Tomme Arthurs blog…I’ll look around for what you mentioned…is it on his blog?
January 12th, 2010 at 5:33 am
There are several things around about the way he’s handled selling flat beer to people. It all started with the Brandy Barrel Angel’s Share release, where the beer served on tap was lively and carbonated, but the bottles were dead flat. Originally people were told to store the bottles in a warmer location and they would carb up. Then the excuse was that it was an English Barleywine and is supposed to be flat. Next there was an interview where he likened his critics to baseball pitchers throwing brush-back pitches at him. He blamed everything on an old bottling line, but the problems continued after the line was replaced. Then other limited releases like Barrel Aged Santa’s Little Helper were flat too. Keep in mind we’re talking about $15-$30 bottles of beer! So in summary: excuses, deny, defensive, more excuses, problem persists. Just hang out on the Beer Advocate forums for a while, a Lost Abbey hate thread is right around the corner.
January 12th, 2010 at 5:47 am
Great write up Nate. I can’t agree with you more that if you put your product widely out there you have to be able to deal with criticism. Hell there are people that get paid to do what we are doing and they can very well say the same things too.
I believe the “Lambic” is a personal favorite of Jim Koch and that might be reason enough for the continual creation of it.
And I do think what Dominos is doing is a great thing. It take a lot of testicular fortitude to come out and embrace the harsh reviews and say “We are going to do better!” I too never liked Dominos pizza, the crust was awful. But I am thinking I might be willing to at least try the new recipe because of them being so honest. Some brewers really could go a long way with this mind set.
January 12th, 2010 at 5:58 am
Does Sam Adams even really care about us bloggers? Somehow I don’t think our reviews/comments about a winter seasonal beer is really going to cut into their bottom line much. Without getting side tracked on the specific beer, at what point/size does a brewery stop caring about reviews on it’s products?
I’m with you Nate, I value criticism on my homebrew. But there is so much of me that goes into the beer, it hurts when there isn’t anything constructive behind the criticism.
January 12th, 2010 at 6:07 am
Oh yeah and I think Chipper Dave from Fermentedly Challenged got quite a harsh reply from Stone on a review he did before. I didn’t understand why they would go out of their way to do that.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:29 am
I once got feedback from Shmaltz Brewing on my hotel drinking post. I said I liked their He’Brew Lenny’s RIPA and lamented the fact that they didn’t sell it in Boise, I got a reply from Zak Davis their Western States Regional Marketing Manager and he referred me to their web site for where in Idaho they distribute. When I said the nearest place was 250 miles away he asked to be put in touch with the owner of a local beer store, which I happily did. When you get that sort of reply, it makes you want to try all their beers. If I got a harsh word from someone, I’d never drink their stuff again.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:39 am
@howard ouch…I hadn’t heard that story, but that is pretty bad. Apologies go along way, especially in the case of obvious mistakes. There is some humor to the stroy
@Mike thanks! I hope that the Lambic isn’t one of Koch’s favorites. I agree with you on the Dominoes thing. They are pretty big in FL, huh? I actually went and looked up the comment on Fermentedly Challenged. It wasn’t awful, but a tad passive aggressive. I guess Greg was living up to the ethos of their brewery “arrogance” ha!
@SimplyBeer I’m with you. Those homebrews are like babies (ok, not quite). When My friend was graciously honest with me, my heart sank. At what point does a brewery stop caring about customer feedback. I don’t know, but I would guess it may occur sometime around when they grow so large that the founder no longer does any actually brewing.
@Don couldn’t agree more. We have had the same experience with Shmaltz from two of their reps. Zak has been accomodating. In one less favorable review, he didn’t grovel, make excuses, or insult mike or my judgment; rather, he pointed me to a brew that he thought I might enjoy more…and I did. Plenty of respect for Hebrew product over here.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:14 am
As the subject of this critique, I just want to make clear that I definitely did not mean to suggest that I/we take offense at the reviews. It is hard to see how my comment could be interpreted that way. I simply asked if all the beer was sent to him at once, in which case he was tasting some older beers that may have suffered from poor storage/shipping. Fresh is always best. I didn’t question his taste buds whatsoever. I’m sorry if it came across any other way.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:19 am
@Nate Yeah there is a lot of Dominos down here. I don’t really like most of the big names style of pizza. I like the little Italian pizzerias more. But they are being honest and trying to make people happy based on the criticism. You got to respect that.
@Don They are great people at Shmaltz. Zak was the one that recommended Lenny’s to me and he got me in touch with their South Florida rep who told me which stores carried it. Oddly the store I always go to carries it but right after Zak mentioned it I couldn’t find it there. After the rep told me it is there, sure enough it was.
I also had the owner of Bison comment on my review of their Gingerbread Ale. I didn’t think it was great but he pretty much just said that he hopes I continue to try their stuff. I definitely will as I have to try the Chocolate Stout as Mike here told me it is quite good.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:26 am
@Dan Thanks for the clarification, it means a lot. I should have mentioned that Mike and I were glad to see a brewery rep interacting in the blog world, particularly ours.
You are right, fresh is always best. I myself have never tasted St. Arnold’s and thus was attempting to be the voice of objectivity and was not attempting to deride anyone, including yourself.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:56 am
@Dan I thought you were offering a reason, too. We understood that angle that you were driving at. You were simply doing your job the way you should have done it, while offering some plausible reasons that their might have been issues. Obviously, I disagreed about the Spring Bock but I really will try to re-taste them at their freshest (provided I have an opportunity) to give them another try. My brother-in-law lives in Houston and that is where I tasted those beers. Please always keep in mind that I enjoyed some of the Saint Arnold line-up.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Nice article, Nate. Thanks for all the interaction guys. Apropos to what Howard said; Lost Abbey really is passing the buck on the carbonation. Believe me when I tell you that I’ve been the recipient of several flat bottle by them. Now they are passing The Angel’s Share off as a beer that’s supposed to be flat. Just admit the problem and fix it already.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
[...] Everyone’s A Critic | Thank Heaven for Beer thankheavenforbeer.com/2010/01/11/everyones-a-critic – view page – cached Unsolicited advice or criticism is far from palatable. I am quite sure you have been on the receiving end of unrequested commentary, and did not relish the [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Hi all. This is Zak from Shmaltz Brewing. This may not be the appropriate venue, but after reading your praises, I just wanted to pop into the conversation and say thanks. I think that most craft breweries (especially the small guys) take all reviews seriously and personally. Our entire industry is based around creating a connection between ourselves, our product, and our customers/supporters.
It never gets old to read a positive review. And as much as we try to brush off the negative ones, knowing that not everyone is going to love our beer, it’s really hard, and often frustrating.
At the same time, we also know that if everyone liked the same beers, we wouldn’t need to put out a dozen different styles. Sometimes it’s just finding the right flavor profile for the right palate.
Thanks again all. L’Chaim!! ~Zak
January 20th, 2010 at 9:53 am
I love the fact that people like Greg Koch from Stone take the time to visit blog sites to chime in on their beer reviews. I realize that everyone has a different opinion of a beer – that’s why I love to encourage discussion about it.
I get all kinds of feedback on my blog. Some I occasionally choose not to let pass through moderation, but I do take notes on negative feedback and try to get some kind of take-away from it.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:05 am
@Dave. I’ve had some of those comments that I don’t let past the moderation stage, too. But I do take that feedback and work on it. My beer and football article comes to mind. I upset a person or two because I wasn’t clear enough in what I was saying.
@Zak. I know what you mean about the beer reviews. It does never get old to see good stuff about it. It never gets old to write positive reviews, either. I love being able to give a good write up. Thanks for chiming in and responding to our posts. P.S. Even if I don’t like something you might make, I can still see that it’s a quality brew. That’s how I try to approach beer reviews.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:15 am
@beer_scientist. Amen to that
February 8th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Zak,
I was wondering what I should do to get you guys distributed in TX? I’m in Denton, outside of Dallas and Ft Worth to be exact. We’ve got a growing beer scene here… the distributor out here is Ben. E. Keith.
Thank you!
February 11th, 2010 at 10:52 am
For right now, no immediate plans to launch Texas. Wacky liquor laws make it more complicated than other states. I know we’d love to sell out there, so don’t lose hope.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:10 am
@Zak. Too many hands in too many cookie jars. We have some pretty wacky laws out there. We need a Boston Beer Party.