German-beer.ie

Fobia

Has anyone had any dealings with this site? They look the business and have nice gifts, but I find myself worried as there seems to be...no outside reference to them elsewhere on the internet.

So I thought I'd post here to see if anyone has heard of them, or, more importantly, bought anything from them?

randomname2005

Hi Fobia,
I saw an add for these in the metro the other day and that was the only reference I had seen about them. It does look like a good service, and it would be nice to have a collection of correct glasses but I would like to hear more about the company first!

Another issue is delivery, as I cant guarantee somebody being at home, Im not sure I would like a load of beer being delivered to work every month!!!!

R

Adeptus Titanicus

randomname2005 wrote:

...and it would be nice to have a collection of correct glasses ...

Do they send glassware with every order or is that a special? I couldn't find anything on the site about it (but it would save me pocketing glasses while in Germany )

KTRIC

F*cking extortionate prices !!! These bottles retail from between 50 - 70 cents in Germany and the Irish will happily bend over and pay a fortune for them.

I bought 5 (100 bottles) crates of beer the last time I was in Germany and put them in the boot of my car. It cost me about €80 and the equivilant here would have cost about €270 or more.

Adeptus Titanicus

KTRIC wrote:

F*cking extortionate prices !!! These bottles retail from between 50 - 70 cents in Germany and the Irish will happily bend over and pay a fortune for them.

Agreed. But we seem to pay more for everything here don't we? You'd pay €5.00 or more for the same in a pub here though

When we go to visit the other half's family I pop into the Getränke Markt run by a neighbour just down the road and pick up a couple of crates for a song. It's like going into his garage (a big one mind you) and browsing crates and crates of all sorts of beer. (and water, Süsser Sprudel etc...)

I wonder how much of the markup on that site is tax and how much is profit/postal costs...

bigears

F*cking extortionate prices !!! These bottles retail from between 50 - 70 cents in Germany and the Irish will happily bend over and pay a fortune for them.

This is a discussion that reared its head some time ago. From what I remember one of the companies who provide a similar service made the argument that these beers were typically brought in by small companies themselves (i.e. man in a van type operations who drive over and bring the goods back). When you factor in transport, excise duty on alcohol - a sizeable sum as this is much higher in Ireland than in Germany, possible middle man, profit margin etc. you can see the cost building up quite quickly - I'm not defending the pricing but it's simplistic to make a direct comparison between 70 cent and 2.70. Now if the big distributors with a decent economy of scale were importing the beer and charging those prices it's another story.

Adeptus Titanicus

According to this (see the bottom of the page, although it may be out of date), Ireland is second only to Finland in the duty it applies to importing beer for sale. 99c/litre. The poor Fins had to put up with €1.43

If only we drove to Germany, but the bloody ferry costs and the long drive (we did it once and it was not fun) would dent any savings.

Still, 2.70 is better than paying a fiver for it in the pub!

Fobia

Hehe, this is getting a bit off topic! I'm fully aware of what the prices are, I just want to find out if I pay that price, will I actually get anything!

Royale with Cheese

My god they sell Koelsch (I think, haven't worked out how you buy yet). I think this is the best day of my life.

bigears

If you like Kolsch there are quite a few stockists of Fruh Kolsch around.

Asok

You mean Kölsch I absolutely love that beer. My fathers side of the family come from just outside Koln and I have been in the brewery and had it straight from the barrel. I think I'm getting wood just thinking about that lovely beer

Royale with Cheese

I ain't got no umlaut on my damned qwerty keyboard, however I will rob yours and copy and paste it. A friend was in Köln over the weekend and managed to get me one bottle of Reissdorf. Better than nothing.

bigears - Where would I be able to get Frueh here (no umlaut again, damn you English langauge). From the bottle it's definitely not my favourite Kölsch but it is far better than anything you can get over here. From the tap though it would be one of my favourite Kölsch

bigears

bigears - Where would I be able to get Frueh here

The usual suspects: Lilac Wines and Martin's, both in Fairview. McHugh's on the Malahide Road and Kilbarrack. Sweeney's in Phibsboro. I'm not too sure where to check on the Southside but I always hear Redmonds in Ranelagh mentioned so I'd say it's a safe bet.

Royale with Cheese

bigears wrote:

The usual suspects: Lilac Wines and Martin's, both in Fairview. McHugh's on the Malahide Road and Kilbarrack. Sweeney's in Phibsboro. I'm not too sure where to check on the Southside but I always hear Redmonds in Ranelagh mentioned so I'd say it's a safe bet.

Hmmm, I'm all the way down in Shankill and have limited access to a car. I'll have a look if I'm ever on the northside... which isn't all that much anymore since the m50 came along. Is it just Früh they have or do they have any other types? My favourite would be Reissdorf, then Dom. Went through a few crates of Gaffel during the world cup cos they had the different flags of all the world cup countries on the bottle caps, ah I'm easily pleased.

oblivious

An off license near the Whelan’s on Wexford Street sells Früh Kölsch

bigears

All I've seen on the shelves recently is Fruh but at one point Realbeers.ie were carrying one called 'Kuppers' or something, I'm not familiar with it. I'm sure there's somewhere in your area selling it - if not just ask them if they can get a crate for you, they won't have much trouble finding out where to get it.

Adeptus Titanicus

bigears wrote:

'Kuppers' or something, I'm not familiar with it..

The Porter House were selling Küppers Kölsch during their Oktober Fest "celebration". Wasn't bad as I recall (although it's a bit fuzzy).

rubadub

KTRIC wrote:

F*cking extortionate prices !!! These bottles retail from between 50 - 70 cents in Germany and the Irish will happily bend over and pay a fortune for them.

I bought 5 (100 bottles) crates of beer the last time I was in Germany and put them in the boot of my car. It cost me about €80 and the equivilant here would have cost about €270 or more.

A bottle of bulmers costs a fortune in germany too... makes perfect sense to me

KTRIC

rubadub wrote:

A bottle of bulmers costs a fortune in germany too... makes perfect sense to me

Wow, someone that actually loves getting Wallet-Raped every time they go for a pint :eek:

bigears

Wow, someone that actually loves getting Wallet-Raped every time they go for a pint

KTRIC, as far as I can see rubadub was pointing out the reality that it costs money to import from one country to another and that someone has to bear that cost. You could make an argument that the margin is too high (personally I have no idea what the margin is) but to just attack someone who doesn't agree with your post is lazy and childish.

Royale with Cheese

Kuppers isn't the greatest, well in comparison to some of the other brands it's not. Only had it once though during a Kölsch tasting session. Tried a load of different brands I usually didn't buy. I'd be happy to buy it here though if it was available.

pzurdo

I've signed up for cheapest option; if it's good I'll stick around, if not...
The idea is good and if it proves legitimate it will be worth supporting.

german-beer.ie

Hello everyone,

one of our customers has pointed me to this board. It is great to see that you are discussion our product critically.
I would like to answer a few questions which where raised.

As pointed out correctly by one of you, the beer price in Germany cannot be directly compared to what we are charging in Ireland. Here is a little breakdown of what costs are involved:

price of the beer --- we don't get a huge discount as we buy beer from changing breweries. This also requires us to negotiate with new breweries all the time.

price for the bottle --- in Germany you pay a deposit for your beer bottles which you get back once you return them. As this is not possible in Ireland we have to pay the full bottle price, which is much higher than the deposit.

Irish beer tax --- the tax on beer in Germany is neglect able, but in Ireland it is between 1Euro and 1.10Euro per liter.

Irish VAT --- the VAT in Ireland is slightly higher than in Germany, but as the VAT is charged on top of the total price which already includes a higher beer tax it is a lot higher in relation.

packing --- in Germany the beer is delivered in re-usable plastic cases which can be packed by a robot, but we have to pack our parcels manually.

shipping from Germany to Ireland

delivery costs --- one of the largest costs is the actual delivery in Ireland. We need to avoid costly re-deliveries and hence we ask our customers to provide us with additional details of what should happen with their delivery if they are not at home.

Our goal is to provide you with a very wide selection of high quality beers you would otherwise not be able to get hold of and to provide
you with unbeatably cheap mass procuded beer. When you look at the costs involved I hope you can see that the prices we charge are reasonable.


Another question asked was regarding glasses. Special glasses will be part of the delivery from time to time, depending on the deal we get
from the brewery, as we cannot guarantee special glasses in every delivery we have only mentioned it in a side note.

We have only just started the German beer club in Ireland and therefore you cannot find many reference to us just yet, but we have been
working in the catering and beer business in Germany for many years. It would be great if you would give us a chance to convince you
by trying out our beers yourself. We are always grateful for any comments or suggestions you might have.

Cheers and prost,
Philipp

rubadub

german-beer.ie wrote:

When you look at the costs involved I hope you can see that the prices we charge are reasonable.

I do think it is very reasonable, and wish you good luck with the business.

One suggestion would be offering pick up instead of delivery, maybe have a minimum amount people could collect, and only certain days like saturday 2-3pm or something. Have you ever looked into the legality of a "beer club" where you could somehow collect money buy the beer and avoid the extra vat & duty (of course still making the same reasonable profit you do for yourself).

I rememeber years back in the UK & the states there were brew clubs, it was a sort of loophole where people went in and tossed in yeast and left, so technically they brewed the beer so were exempt from duty & vat, the company then brewed & bottled it and they collected a month later.

You could also get a relationship going with a pub or off-licence, I am sure the porterhouse would be interested, so people could go into town and sample this months beers in a pub before they decide on buying a crate of something they are unsure of. Or have monthly tasting sessions in the pub of all the new beers.

oblivious

Any chance of getting Rauchbier, bock or Doppelbock?

Fobia

Just to update, after finding no-one knew anything about this company (this was a week or so ago, before german-beer posted themselves!), we thought "**** it" and ordered anyway. Got in before the deadline for the Christmas note thingy (by a few hours!), so just waiting for it to arrive now.

Was still a little weary, but less so now that they've posted themselves. Hopefully the note will arrive over the next few days.

pzurdo

One suggestion I would make is that at times, it would help if advance notice was given of the beers on offer the following month. This would allow customers to place and order, or to order more of a particular beer they liked or wished to try. Also, perhaps if a particular beer "went down well", there could be an option to request that beer again.

Anyway, good luck, and I'm looking forward to the delivery!

german-beer.ie

Hello,

thank you for your suggestions and comments. The upcoming breweries and beers are on the front page, but it might not be clear enough --- I will look into improving it. We are already working on a rating system to find out which Beers are your favourites.

Bock beer will be on offer, most likely in May, as this is its main period.

@Fobia: Thank you for ordering. Your Christmas present should be with you in the next few days, we send it out on Wednesday.


Cheers,
Philipp

scojones

Thanks for coming to chat with us german-beer.ie. That's fairly decent of you.

dereko1969

anyone get their january box yet? i signed up for a 3 month period, i'd be more of an ale fan but i do like the odd hefeweise and i must say the selection of beers looks good, any views on the december beers?

thegills

Guys
This looks like you will be committing to a subscription without knowing the beers that you will be getting. I have been a regular visitor to Germany for a long time and I don't recognize any of the beers listed on the site. My regulars would be Spaten, Hacker Phscorr, Augustener, Hofbrau, etc.
thegills

noby

To be fair, thegills, I've never been to Germany, but I know those four regulars. They seem to be promoting smaller, regional brews.

I'd sign up for it myself, but I'm knd of gone off wheat beers at the moment.

dereko1969

i've signed up for the 3 month/9 bottle variety. you could buy spaten anywhere, the beauty of this idea is that you're getting beers you wouldn't normally have the opportunity to try. also something to be borne in mind is that whatever option you sign up for you are only charged monthly so you're not paying the full whack up front which is a bonus. in fairness as well they do have the world champion beer in the january selection and the following two months breweries seem interesting too.

racso1975

Can anybody provide me with some feed back from this company? Have there been any probs? How do they deliver or do you pick up? and any other tips thinking of signing up

dereko1969

they've had a few problems, firstly with irish revenue and then i think with the german authorities. it's a real pity but in fairness to them they've been very communicative and refunded my first months payment. apparently they feel it is likely to be March before they can ship. i was informed that they may have the beers that were to be included in the january and february shipments on offer at a special price and may also as a gesture include glasses or t-shirts in the first shipment. i'm definitely going to continue and hope that in march i'll be having a few bottles of some different beer. i'll post back here when i hear any more or can find the emails i was sent by them.

pzurdo

Any news on this? Have the problems been resolved?

Cheers

CombatCow

Not yet, there's some shipping issues, im pretty sure jan's cost of the beer has been refunded, and they are hoping to resolve the shipping problem soon.


CC

dereko1969

they definitely refunded my january subscription and february hasn't been taken yet. i'm registered with them through my hotmail a/c which i can't access in work so i'll check, hopefully tonight, and let you know what the story is. think the german and irish revenue have been taking turns in causing the company problems:mad: given their customer feedback and what a great idea this is i'll definitely keep faith with them.

pzurdo

I see the German-beer.ie site has not been up-dated in some time. Looks like our EU friends have hammered the ordinary punter and small businessman once more (see their Premiership meddling: we'll now have to pay Sentanta AND Sky next year to see all we do at present with just Sky).

This was an excellent idea that appears to have been trampled by the bureaucrats. It seems that only big business have a open market. Let's all remember this once they get going again with their f'kin EU constitution.