I’m brewing a new and untested recipe. The “world premiere” of Bottom O’ the Barrel Brown will be in a few weeks.
I’m naming it that because I’m brewing with the grains that were left in my depleted supply of malt. A very ad hoc recipe. The malts I ordered online left my supplier – only about 140 miles distant from me-- on December 8 and I still haven’t received them. We’ve had a report in the local newspaper that USPS has transshipped packages to distant locations because they don’t have room at the local facility. Or did Santa prematurely drop them in outer Mongolia?
Blame Covid 19 and a whopping increase in online ordering for Christmas.
In the past when I realized I needed something else for a brew at the last minute, I get it from one of the two LHBS within a 25-mile radius of me. However both began phasing out of handling brewing supplies earlier this year. One was gone by March and the other has almost nothing left in stock.
It seems that online sales with free shipping from the big guys put the local guys out of business.
Both of my “local” shops (55m and 35m) are getting more business than ever. They have been low on some stock, but talking to them it’s only because more people are brewing due to being bored at home.
Earlier this year I had an order slightly delayed from more beer. They use FedEx for delivery to my house and other than that order, everything has been delivered within the expected time. I have gifts stuck in the postal service system and nobody can tell me when they’re coming, if at all. One was ordered a month ago. Seems like ups and FedEx would be safer options for getting deliveries right now. I really enjoyed using my LHBS until it changed ownership. It went downhill immediately. It was sad to see. It has since closed because he ran everyone off.
I feel like most shipments arriving (post office, UPS, FedEx, Amazon) are completely fubar right now. I ordered something from Amazon that was supposed to take 2 days to get to me and it took 12. My wife ordered a new office chair. It was late but it did arrive… actually TWO chairs arrived. But her Amazon account said that it was running late. As of now, her credit card has not been charged and her account only shows that she ordered ONE. So she got two chairs for nothing. I’m sure brewing supplies are no exception. I hope it arrives shortly so you can brew it. Cheers.
Anyone ordering anything starting around Thanksgiving and expecting it not to be delayed, rerouted, lost, etc. has been delusional about getting it on time. Of course I am married to a USPS employee and have some inside info but we made sure all of our online orders were completed by Dec. 1st.
My mom sent three Christmas cards USPS at the same time. We all live in the same county but we have different post offices. We got ours. Theirs hasn’t been delivered yet. [emoji2369]
I was in the garage brewing on Saturday and the FedEx truck pulled into my driveway. Our FedEx driver is a super sweet, hustling latina who works her butt off. She unloaded some stuff on my driveway and I said, “Crazy right now, right?” and she said, “Yes. 7 days a week right now. Non-stop until after the first of the year”. I really need to hand her $20 the next time I see her. She’s a force.
My wife sent her mother gifts about two weeks ago by USPS from our house in Massachusetts to her house in another part of Massachusetts. Tracking shows them sitting in Iowa for the past week.
Our normal mail delivery arrives sometime in the mid-afternoon… 2, 3pm. Yesterday the mail truck pulled into our court and delivered something to my nextdoor neighbor at about 7:15am. Today the mail truck arrived at our house at 8:30am and he dropped off two boxes on my front porch and then drove away. I assume normal mail delivery will occur sometime this afternoon but I’m not sure what’s up with this early morning thing. Why weren’t those boxes just on the normal truck that was coming to my house today anyway?
Sorry that this topic has turned into something that oldsters would discuss over morning coffee.
My guess: The post office and trucks only have so much space to store mail before delivery. They gotta keep it moving or build a bigger warehouse to store it. It’s similar to Just In Time logistics in manufacturing.
Makes sense but holy shizzle… the mail truck just came to my house AGAIN and delivered something that I ordered on Amazon for my wife for Christmas. I feel like these people are just running around with their pants on fire.
I had a passenger car show up early this AM with a USPS sticker on it. She delivered two packages to the front door, ran back to her car, and buzzed away. [emoji23] The regular mail doesn’t run until noon-ish. [emoji2357]
All of my mail is delayed much worse than previous years at this time. Not sure whats going on, probably a multitude of factors, whatever it is, its quite frustrating.
Anyone ordering anything starting around Thanksgiving and expecting it not to be delayed, rerouted, lost, etc. has been delusional about getting it on time. Of course I am married to a USPS employee and have some inside info but we made sure all of our online orders were completed by Dec. 1st.
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I hadn’t expected “normal delivery”, but hoped 10 -12 days would suffice. Silly me.
One factor at work for much of the second half of this year is that the USPS hasn’t been able to hire enough people quickly enough to make-up for the loss of personnel due to Covid. Here’s hoping that by July or August some of this problem will be abated as the vaccines start to have a positive effect.
I’ll also mention that my wife ordered an office chair through Amazon. Her credit card was not charged and the status of her order is “Your order may be lost”. It shows one chair on the order. Meanwhile, TWO chairs showed up about a week ago. I assembled one and she has been using it. We’re not sure what to do with the other one because you can’t return it (or do anything really) until Amazon’s system recognizes it as “delivered”. I have also heard of people receiving a TV with their name and address on it. When they call Amazon to tell them that they didn’t order it and “what should I do with it”, they literally tell them to keep it because it’s easier than shipping it back.
This isn’t the first year this type of thing has happened. In 2002 (I think. Maybe 2012?) we ordered a 50" Plasma TV and a week later 2 of them showed up. I accepted one and refused the other. Luckily they were on different lading bills. I was only ever charged for one. Crazy stuff happens.
I buy a lot online. I’d rather shop more locally but none of the local shops are convenient to get to these days and I don’t want to drive all over town to piece together a handful of items when I can click away on my computer at better prices. It’s also hard to compete locally on quality or price for hops that I can order direct from farmers or hop-specific retailers.
On shipping I think which service works best is a lot about the retailer and where you live. When I lived in Texas the USPS was extremely unreliable. Here in Denver they deliver packages early in the morning and then come through a second time with the regular mail delivery during the day. Nothing gets lost or shows late. Fedex is ok but UPS is almost certain to mess something up. OTOH it seems like more retailers do the “created a label to mark it as shipped but then ship it a week later” with USPS than Fedex or UPS.
