Here’s an entertaining video to start your day. The situation is that Stone Brewing contracts with a condiment maker to supply a couple of different mustards with their beer in them, but the final product mysteriously ends up without any beer in it. The kicker is that Stone sent the manufacturer the beer, and the kegs came back empty….so, what happened to all of that beer?
Stone is making good on the mistake and owns up to it with a public apology in the following video. I commend them for not laughing throughout the entire video.
A Public Apology: June 24th, 2010 from stonebrew on Vimeo.
Here is the entire statement from their website:
We here at Stone deeply value the trust and respect of our fans, and we’re profoundly thankful for the support and faith you’ve shown us over the years. Given that, we are saddened and distressed to tell you that we’ve been selling something that’s not exactly what we thought it was: our mustards. It turns out that Stone Cali-Belgique IPA Cali-Dijon Mustard and Stone Pale Ale Stone Ground Mustard with Chipotle Peppers have apparently been produced without a key ingredient…our beer!
We had no idea this was happening, and we immediately removed them from sale as soon as we learned of it last week. We work with Russ Bruhn, a local guy who owns a company called Carlsbad Gourmet to supply the mustards; Russ then contracts with another company to produce them. It is this company that we have found failed to put the beer in the mustard. What they did with the beer, we’re not sure. We sent them full kegs and they sent us back empty kegs…one can only imagine where it might have gone.
It is important to note that all of our other sauces, including our hot sauces and grilling/BBQ sauces, which are made by a different local company, do in fact have our beer in them.
We accept full responsibility for this misleading mustard and are committed to making it up to you if you bought it. If you come to the Stone Company Store with a jar of the above-mentioned mustards before September 1st, we’ll swap it for a 22oz. bottle of Stone Cali-Belgique IPA or Stone Pale Ale. If you can’t make it to the Stone Company Store, use the online coupon code mustardgate for 10% off any purchase from StoneCompanyStore.com good through September 1st.
Needless to say, the sham mustard isn’t going to hurt anybody, and frankly, it’s still damn tasty mustard. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of exchanging it, be confident in the knowledge that you can still safely and satisfyingly continue eating it. Or better yet, pour a dash of our beer in your mustard and enjoy it the way it was supposed to taste.
Again, we apologize for this and hope you’re faith in us won’t be too shaken by the drama of MustardGate 2010. We are very ticked off about this, but that doesn’t mean you have to be.
marcbl // Jun 25, 2010 at 10:54 am
Stone Brewing should run for public office.
DraughtE // Jun 25, 2010 at 12:33 pm
That was classic. Thanks for sharing.