KBS 2013 On-Site Release Response

We’d like to apologize to all of you that had difficulties with purchasing tickets for our on-site KBS release this past Saturday.

Please see this statement from Brown Paper Tickets in regards to their server issues:

Brown Paper Tickets would like to apologize to Founders Brewing Company, and its customers, for a 25-minute delay in our ability to sell tickets to the 2013 KBS bottle release event. We have now taken protective measures to ensure that our customers are not inconvenienced in the future. The error was rooted in our communications and not in our servers—in other words human error. It is our business and passion to get these things right and we failed. If it isn’t understood already, Brown Paper Tickets stands behind Founders Brewing Company and their events, but in front of any criticism for the KBS online ticket sale. It was our bad and we’ll not let it happen again.

In addition to the proceeds from the tickets sales already donated by Founders Brewing, Brown Paper Tickets is making a $2,000 donation to the Grand Rapids White Water initiative.

Brown Paper Tickets fully supports companies like Founders Brewing who have created a bottle release method very much in line with our Not-Just-For-Business ethos of giving and growing communities as a regular part of doing business.

Again, our most heartfelt apology for this isolated incident, and as always, we welcome your personal call.

In our planning for next year’s on-site release, we’ll work to ensure that the process is as efficient, fair and enjoyable for everyone involved as possible. We plan to do continued research to select a ticketing partner and release process that works best for us.

As we’ve said before, we’d like to thank all of you for your support, loyalty and appreciation for good craft beer—it’s humbling to know how many of you out there are passionate about what we’re doing here in Grand Rapids. Furthermore, as many of you are aware, due to the barrel-aging process, KBS will always be a limited release product. We’re happy to have been able to make significantly more this year compared to last, but we understand that we will likely never get supply up enough to match demand for this product. Lastly, please keep in mind that KBS will be distributed in limited quantities across our 23-state footprint beginning on Monday, April 1.

We’re a small brewery—we appreciate all of your feedback, but we ask for your patience in our responses to it. And if you have any questions in regards to ticket order confirmation or shopping cart issues, please direct them to Brown Paper Tickets at 800-838-3006.

–Dave Engbers and Mike Stevens, co-founders