When things go wrong
This past week was one of those weeks at the brewery. On Monday, we shipped out several pallets of beer for Massachussets. These pallets included beer for Distribution as well as some extra cases of beer for the two beer dinners we are partcipating in. Unfortunately, because I was out of the country the previous week, there were some cases of beers that fell through the cracks.
Given that we had an additional week’s worth of time before the events, it wouldn’t be too big of a deal. On Tuesday, I boxed up 3 cases of Duck Duck Gooze and 3 cases of Cuvee de Dumbass. We packaged them in the proper beer shippers and sent them via fed ex to our Atlantic Importing (our distributor) in Framingham. They were scheduled to arrive on Friday which would allow Atlantic time to deliver them on Monday for the Tuesday dinner in Worchester. At least that’s what we thought. You see, MA. is one of those states where it is illegal to ship beer into and Fed Ex (in Boston) halted the delivery of our packages to Atlantic.
Gina got the phone call on Friday morning stating that our packages were not going to be delivered AND that we were going to have to pay for the shipping of the bottles back to us! ARGH this blows. Fed Ex would not allow us to reroute the boxes to a legal state nor would they allow our distributor to pick them up. So now, we are minus 2 on our beer dinner beers and in need of fixing this problem.
Whew whew, this coming Monday, I am boarding a flight from Carlsbad to Boston and when I get to the airport, I will be toting an additional 4 cases of beer with me as well as my luggage for the trip. This means that when I land in Boston, I will have 5 items to handle instead of 1. It also means that I will now need to rent a car and drag all the beer with me from Boston to Worchester, MA. in order to have the right beers at the beer dinner. This is going to be a royal pain in my ass. It sucks for sure and it’s not exactly the best way to travel. I’m also counting on the fact that United Airlines will allow me to ship 4 cases of beer in the belly of their planes(I’m calling to confirm this). But they’ll also want to charge me for the right to place said beers in their planes. This is course means that on top of the Fed Ex costs (both ways), the rental car needs and the airline fees, this is turning into a very expensive proposition.
Still, when I get to the beer dinner on Tuesday night, it will be worth it. Why? Well for starters, because Alec the Chef has been prepping for this dinner for over a month and he specifically asked for these beers. We could find other stunt beers to step in for our missing comrades but that isn’t how chefs want to work. They don’t want to agonize over the details only to have things fall apart at the last minute. So, on Tuesday morning when I land at Logan Airport, I will be in search of 2 cases of Cuvee de Dumbass and 2 cases of Duck Duck Gooze. As long as these make it, I won’t mind if my luggage ends up in Tahiti. The beer is the most important thing. It always has been. Let’s hope the guys handling the luggage don’t get thirsty…