What's The Longest You've Waited For A Beerbelly Hopscreen?

[JestersDarts]

took him a couple days to do mine...and there's no "less than 1 week" option <_<

TidalPete: I pump out of my kettle full speed with the march pump, never clogged anything.

Nick JD: There's a reason people don't use those stupid little bags, and it's not because its some brand new cutting edge technology that hasn't caught on yet

Which is?

 

[RetsamHsam]

Which is?

I'm guna guess it has something to do with Hop Utilisation

 

[komodo]

My only bitch with BB is the lack of communication (post order placement).
I think wayne and amanda need to set asside some time once a week to write up a schedule for the coming weeks.
a.) so amanda can give buyers a realistic lead time - not just some plucked out of the air figure.
b.) so that when delays do come up amanda / wayne can let buyers know that production has been set back by "x" number of days/weeks.

I run a fabrication workshop myself (admittedly on a larger scale) and scheduling is a major part of the running of the business. It helps us to procure stock in time but without too much lead so to keep the accounts running smoothly. Im sure a small business like Wayne and Amandas runs a tighter budget than we run and buying stock and opperating accounts smoothly goes a long way towards making the overall opperation run smoothly.

It helps us let potential customers know lead times - its better to be honest and tell a potential customer your lead time is 12 weeks than to tell them you can do it in 2 weeks and have them 10 weeks down the track a pissed off customer still waiting. Most customers are happy to wait for quality - but no one likes to be bullshitted with unachivable dates. Wayne and BeerBelly have an established reputation for fabricating brilliant work. They dont need to promise the unachivable to win work and doing so just tarnishes their reputation. I'm sure wayne would rather be known for his brilliant / high demand work than never meeting promised dates.

If there is a delay in the workshop for what ever reason with a proper schedule you can easily see upcoming work and you can let those people affected know early on. I'd much rather be told two weeks before my order is due that theres been a 4 week delay than to be jumping up and down three and a half weeks after my order was due wondering where the heck it is.


Other than that Beer Belly is fantastic. There presales communication is brilliant and after sales support is brilliant. Hell they even threw insome hops with my order as a bit of a sweetener for the delays, much appreciated - but probably not required, especially if the communication during fabrication had been better - sure its only $10 worth of hops here and there - but if they are chucking $10 worth of hops in every second order or say 5 orders a day - thats $250 worth of profit gone out the window and I know $250 - hell even $100 at the end of the week makes a big difference to the thickness of bit of leather in my sky rocket at the end of the week.
The quality of the workmanship is brilliant and Wayne and co deserve all the praise in the world for their workmanship. Their products are well fabricated and well thought out through obvious experiance as brewers.
Next time I'm over in SA I'll definately drop in and say g'day. Hopefully I wont hold Wayne and production up too much though

 

[jonocarroll]

What's The Longest You've Waited For A Beerbelly Hopscreen?

25 years. To be fair, if there was a gap at all between finding out they existed, and wanting one, it may have been a longer wait (by that much). Acquiring this knowledge and acquiring this product were separated by the time it took to drive to the store then select and pay for the item.

"I went 12 years in a row without drinking alcohol once... damn childhood"

 

[Steve]

deserve all the praise in the world for their workmanship.

then put all of what you just said in an email to them instead of bitching about it here......

 

[domonsura]

All I can say is a shedule is wonderful - if all the other players stick to it too (by other players I mean materials suppliers and my health). Generally all of the small bits are out of necessity these days made in batches - ie: by hand, 20-40 units at a time, and then on to the next batch of the next item. It's the only feasible way of doing things, and they take TIME to make. Every little piece takes time. Every cut, every hole, every weld and every little bit of polish. I have taken the time to outline this and the fact that we are not an 'off the shelf' business on our 'policies' page - but of course no-one ever takes the time to read these things... <_< so perhaps have a different perception of what we are/how many of us there are.

Overall we are well aware that there is room for improvement & would love to be able to give more accurate timetables and much more communication, but at this stage there are just two of us and it's just not possible until we streamline things further - and to do that I need to get the queue out of the way. To do that I need to streamline things............ It's an evil little circle believe me.

There is a new website that I have been building from scratch during the wee small hours, due for 'beta' release in few weeks that should streamline things drastically - (hopefully including a work timetable) - which in turn should free Amanda up a bit for quicker/more accurate communication. She tries to give as accurate as possible a timeframe, but to put it simply, sometimes I get it wrong and have to re-work which throws everything out. I'm only human. I also do a bit of custom fabrication work, which is very hard to put a timeframe on when I don't know how long it's going to take. The custom work is now starting to get turned down, as it is getting too time consuming - which is a shame as it's why I started this business.

ANYWAY - in terms of current orders outstanding - I am completing a special brewery for dispatch to a very patient bloke over the next couple of days, and then all remaining orders for fabricated gear should be leaving in quick succession from the end of this week/over the next week. This should cover most orders as far as I am aware up until a couple of weeks ago, not including full breweries...(but definitely including all hopscreens). From that point hopefully things should be under control again.
Be warned though - I'm taking a month off next february to ride around Australia on the Trumpy, so if you want something before then you'd better get your order in now....
Wayne

 

[Gulf]

...completing a special brewery... and then all remaining orders for fabricated gear...

I ordered a hopscreen recently, got told this and that I would need to wait 2+ weeks. That was fine with me.
After all the months of dicking around I've done trying to fashion some cheap-ass solution (including burning myself trying to drain a blocked kettle), the cost and wait time now seems negligible.

 

[Murcluf]

Isn't the pimply faced kid still on master chef?

I support beerbelly.

Bugger your right he is too!!! :unsure: but you wont find him or his handy work at Beerbelly's

 

[Nick JD]

Nick JD: There's a reason people don't use those stupid little bags, and it's not because its some brand new cutting edge technology that hasn't caught on yet

Prove that the utilisation is less. Go on - otherwise I call bullshit.

EDIT: I think there's an issue I'd like to call, "Brewer's Bling Regret". What happens is a brewer spends hundreds and thousands of dollars on shiny devices and then one day drinks their mate's beer that was brewed with five dollars of white polyester ... and it's just as good as theirs. :lol:

 

[bum]

And then you'll continue to call bullshit, if history is anything to go by.

 

[Steve]

What happens is a brewer spends hundreds and thousands of dollars on shiny devices

im sure the commercial breweries regret spending hundreds and thousands and millions on equipment over the past hundred or so years instead of going down to their local tailor to ask for some cotton to make into bags

 

[TidalPete]

And then you'll continue to call bullshit, if history is anything to go by.

Gotta say I agree with you this time around bum :lol:

TP.

 

[drsmurto]

Bugger your right he is too!!! :unsure: but you wont find him or his handy work at Beerbelly's

Until beerbelly jr learns to weld.......

 

[brewerben]

A couple of years back Wayne made me a pickup tube for my hop filter on the spot, within minutes of me walking into the shop. From memory he wasn't happy with the first one he'd made or something. I call that service. Every other time I've had prompt service and when there's been a delay I've had a message on my phone to that effect.

Unless you've talked to the vendor directly about your concerns first, i.e. sent them a verbatim copy of what you're going to post here on AHB, and have given them a chance to reply then don't post this crap.

Wayne keep up the good work, I'll be getting an order in for some gear before Feb 2011.

 

[~MikE]

Until beerbelly jr learns to weld.......

haha, considering this isn't china, that'll probably have to wait for a few years

 

[yardy]

I run a fabrication workshop myself

why not fab up your own gear then ?

EDIT: I think there's an issue I'd like to call, "Brewer's Bling Regret". What happens is a brewer spends hundreds and thousands of dollars on shiny devices and then one day drinks their mate's beer that was brewed with five dollars of white polyester ... and it's just as good as theirs. :lol:

i think you're the one with bling regret mate, you want salt with that chip on your shoulder ?

 

[gregs]

In my opinion when you order goods of any description ask for the lead time before handing over your money.

Subsequently good business would be to quote the lead time before taking the costumers money.

And to persons quoting quality there is no doubt that the product in question is the best on offer but it has nothing to do with Barley Bellys original question.

 

[Barley Belly]

For anyone that is interested, I received my BeerBelly hopscreen today.
It officially took 6 weeks and 5 days from the date of order.
The workmanship is second to none, so I guess it was worth the wait.

For the record though:-

-I chose to not reply to this thread while people were making all kinds of allegations against me, as I cared not to get into a slanging match with anyone over the answer to a simple question

-I've never questioned the quality of BeerBelly's product

-I've never publicly slandered BeerBelly

-I knew that some of the products take a while to manufacture, but I thought it would be the "out of stock", custom or turnkey systems. When I ordered the hopscreen from the website it wasn't showing "out of stock", I figured around one weeks delivery maximum

-At the time of order, although I should of asked and will do in the future, I was never told of any delays on delivery of my product

-Total payment for the order was direct debited into BeerBelly's account the day after I placed the order

-After waiting two weeks from order date I emailed to enquire the whereabouts of my product and was told Wayne was in the middle of a brewery and that the hopscreens were about one week away

-After waiting a further two weeks and still no hopscreen, I decided to post THIS poll up on AHB to find out other people's experiences on buying a hopscreen from BeerBelly and how long they normally took. I also re-emailed BeerBelly and four days later I received a reply stating that the brewery didn't go as planned and that my order should be completed shortly

-After waiting a further two weeks and still no hopscreen, I emailed BeerBelly again and was told my hopscreen was in the vice and they will be dispatching it this afternoon

-Two days later it arrived

This was my experience with ordering my hopscreen from BeerBelly
Make of it what you will

Cheers :icon_cheers: