customer dis-satisfaction

[infomercial]

ok i get home from going to total wine with a car full of brews and notice my boxes of homebrew supplies have shown up. i ordered from brewbyyou.com and austin homebrew.
the brewyou stuff was great although they were out of stock on one item but included 2 comparable items at no charge which i liked.
the austin homebrew order had included the tap-a-draft kit and every piece of the kit was included except the tap with a note saying "tap-a-draft tap will be sent seperately."
now maybe this wouldn't be so bad if the tap-a-draft was the only reason i ordered anything from austin homebrew.every one of the many people who follow my posts know i have been saving up for it for a while. it is listed as not in stock with all the other homebrew retailers i checked. the austin homebrew price is about $25 more than the price of any other retailers and i figured they had not sold out because of the high price.
anyone who has dealt with them please post your experiences i feel like they should atleast price match with another online retailer if the tap isn't just on it's way.
so i felt like i should relax dont worry and have a micro brew. i put several from shipyard's captain's collection 12 pack into the fridge. when i pull them out later for me and a friend i noticed something with my ipa but not my friends export ale. it was a gusher with head foaming out of the bottle almost as fast as i could suck it up.i drank about 1/4 of the liquid this way untill i decided to pour it and although i wasn't able to pour much at a time the head died down in the glass. this is the first non-homebrew beer i have had this problem with. im thinking it could be a bacterial infection or just a double dose of priming sugar. im drinking it now and it does taste a little off but not sour or any of the other tastes i associate with infection. i'm thinking i will try to cap any others from the 12 pack act like this and send it to them, but they use twist off bottles and sending something that could explode like that in the mail probably isn't smart.
but hey, im pissed off and this forum seems like the place for it.

[dparsons]

Seems like a bad day.

[stronk]

I have had a lot of trouble with online HBSs before. They tend to be the online fronts of actual stores and so their stock depends on what they've got on their shelves. I find this particularly with yeast.

As for the beer: I have had several commercial beers gushing at me. The cure is to pour some of it into a glass. Then the bottle will settle down. It's not necessarily a hallmark of infection, but I would agree that I usually see it in beers which have been over-primed.

[geexploitation]

Sounds like a bad beer day indeed.

I've ordered from online HBSs in the past. Not too often, so I don't have a lot of experience, but I've ordered several times from Grape and Granary with no bad experiences, for what that's worth. If you haven't already, you should call Austin Homebrew and find out what's up, and ask that they either match other prices when the item comes back in stock or refund your money. Any business ought to be able to do that.

As far as the gusher, it may or may not be a sign of infection. Did the beer have a slightly tight, watery, astringent taste, or was it normal? If it was the former, it was probably infected.

[infomercial]

well i have calmed down on both subjects but i am still mad. i just finished my second email to austin home brew. the first went un answered and if this one does im calling them up to cancel the order and get it somewhere else if they wont give me credit to make up for the price.
my first email was just asking what the ETA on the taps was and i found later it is posted on their site as the 9th, which gives me plenty of time to get this sorted out.
all of the other bottles of ipa in the 12 pack did the same thing. the pouring suggestions helped. it tasted fine and i did not get sick so it's not a big deal. neither is losing $20 and waiting on part of an order for a few weeks.

[MichaelM]

morebeer.com has them for 59.95 and its covered by the free shipping they offer AND they have them in stock right now. I waited till they got theirs in to order and my first AG batch will be going into it here in a couple weeks

[Austinhomebrew]

Sorry for the delay on the tap. ALL of the distributors are out of stock because the manufacturer is behind in production of the product. We called around to try to find if we could get a tap to you quicker but all of the stores we called including More Beer we sold out. If you have found a store that has them available and you want a refund for the tap just let me know. We ran out of the taps and before we could post date the product on the website, you ordered one. We already had some on order but when the truck arrived they didn't ship them. The distributor did not let us know they were sold out when we ordered them. Then we called the manufacturer and they said they were out and they would send us some when they get around to it. They said "we will try to get the taps out on Monday but we can't promise you anything". We are in a bind and apparently most other stores are too. This was an error that was caused by the manufacturer and the distributor. I can apologise on thier behalf but that won't put the tap in your hands any faster.

Let me know what you would like to do.

Forrest
Austin Homebrew Supply

[Mill Rat]

I like seeing the EHBS keep up the boards. It can only be good for their business. I recently ordered from Midwest Homebrew Supplies, and they did mix up one item and had another item with a faulty piece from their manufacturer. I contacted them through their web site and they quickly set about making things right at no cost to YT. No one is perfect, but when you get your errors corrected quickly, that's all one can reasonably ask.

[Randybo]

I too like that AHS came online with a FULL explanation and not just "im sorry there was nothing we could do" that so many places do any more. So good going AHS.

[infomercial]

i got the tap today about a week after it was again in stock on their site.
in the future when i am ordering something i need right away i will call or email the site to make sure it is in stock.

[fretlessman71]

Gotta say it's really nice to see a company step up and take responsibility for what happened. WELL DONE, AHBS. Salud! :cool: