Brewdog Brussels Place discussion

I’m a bit surprised by the comments brothstein (co-owner of Brewdog Brussels) gives in his rating of his own bar. His comment about the guest beers : I’m pretty sure both beers mentioned are available at Moeder Lambic at the very least. Delirium has them has well?
Brewdog is a multinational company with over 30 bars around the world, so I would think they have some experience in launching one. Personally I’m still giving them the benefit of the doubt but this rating sounded a bit too cocky imho.

Edit : link to the place ==> http://www.ratebeer.com/p/brewdog-brussels/57381/

none of the reviews bar one were terrible. so not sure why the fuss

Wow, that’s one way to put it. His intervention doesn’t belong where it does, but I certainly understand him and don’t think it’s a bad one to be honest. He’s wrong about the beers he mentions not being available elsewhere (JJ IV is definitely on tap at Moeder for instance) but the growing pains of a young bar are definitely real.

Fair comments, also nice that he doesn’t give his own bar a 100 score like many do. I think he means that their guest beers are bot available everywhere, which is probably true. I saw their prices on Facebook so I didn’t even bother to visit last time I was in Brussels, but I might the next time I’m there as I also heard they now have smaller glasses than the ridiculous 33cl as the smallest option...

I agree with his desire to voice his opinion (rating your own bar is not allowed by RB policy). I do stand by my review, he choose to open the bar and charge people money for it. I clearly noted in my review that I visited on opening night. I clearly said that most customers seemed happy & that I likely have a minority opinion.

I will revisit and change my review if the situation changes. I do not agree with his use of the term “recommendation”. He can ask his clients polity to come back again & renew their opinion but the way he formulated it, it almost sounds like I own him something or should follow his advice.

As for Curieuse Neus (you can find it at Delirium Café & Malt Attacks). IV Saison is available at both Moeder Lambiek locations, Delirium Café, Bier Circus etc. Yes they are not available at every bar but we were comparing his bar with more specialized places. Which I think is only logical.
If you promote yourself as the worlds biggest BrewDog bar & talk about the quality of the brand, there will be expectations. I liked Brussels way less than BrewDog Camden which I think is a fair & logical comparison.

I am not even sure what to comment on the 380 people capacity, can’t imagine the chaos it would be.
They stopped doing Bfast after 2 weeks, pushing opening hours to 10am instead of 7am. I have friends who went last week and were not happy with the service. They give an upscale feel about the bar, people expect service at the table, I heard of people who left for that very reason. I posted several comments on their FB page which went unanswered, but they reply to almost every positive replies.

Point being, beer geeks know the image Brewdog is trying to give to craft beer - hell, it’s their business and marketing that put them where they are, the average Joe doesn’t know about it. Don’t be surprised when local members of craft beer’s biggest rating community are displeased by the way Brewdog Brussels is currently operating.

As for his comment, I disagree with point #2 and #3. I am not gonna go give the place 90+ if it doesn’t deserve it, and I won’t cut slack when some beers cost upward of 9€. Sorry, bro. However, I’ll revisit and rerate as needed.

Still, I think Julien said it right. His comments are not unfair nor cocky imo. Think every new bar will experience "kinderziektes" and -while I have not been there, just to make that clear- we should indeed cut them some slack and give them a chance to improve over the next couple of months.

Just to be clear I’m not saying any of you are wrong in your rating either, I think most if not all of those ratings seemed perfectly fair but I find it kind of cool that he actually cares enough to ask you to come back rather than the classic "fuck beer geeks wtf do they know anyways" kind of attitude we usually see from the bigger players in the beer industry.

I’ll be following just to see if its actually a crappy place or a good place that opened too soon. We’ll see.

The excuses are quite bad, we only hired them recently and did not have time to train them properly? Shit, you have a consortium of beer enthusiasts offering honest feedback, take it, apologize and fix it, do not cry about it and blame the consumer.
fucking management 101

Well, it does take time to train personnel, I think it’s a fair argument. He just tries to give an explanation for some of the things that didn’t go too well (which he admits). If you get a new job, you need to go through training first as well, but I’m pretty sure you do that on the job, and not months in advance without pay.

Originally posted by digita7693
The excuses are quite bad, we only hired them recently and did not have time to train them properly? Shit, you have a consortium of beer enthusiasts offering honest feedback, take it, apologize and fix it, do not cry about it and blame the consumer.
fucking management 101