Shipping

[Crut]

OK y'all I need some help. I hear everyone talk about sending theyre beer to contests or into the sunday session. How exactly do you send it? USPS? UPS?
I tried to send a couple bottles of my home made wine that were very well packaged in bubble wrap and newspaper to a friend on the east coast, from Michigan. She didnt get the package. do you send it just regular first class mail?

[codewritinfool]

My advice is to avoid the USPS. Use UPS or Fedex or whatever.

Also, shop around. I was going to ship a package via UPS and found out that Fedex was $10 less. $10 is a lot of money to throw away to UPS. Your mileage may vary.

[Crut]

Has UPS or FED-EX ever questioned it?
Whats theyre policy on shipping alcohol or liquids?

[codewritinfool]

I never investigated it and I don't care to find out.

We have a machine at work that seals bags, so I just wrap the bottle in bubble wrap, put it into a poly bag, then seal it shut. I figure that if a bottle broke, the bubble wrap will hold the glass and the bag will hold the beer. I hope, anyway.

[Bugeater]

Do not ship beer with the USPS! It's a federal offense if you get caught.

FedEx and UPS both state that they will not accept shipments of beer. The various states have all sorts of bizzare arcane laws about the shipment of beer into their states. Neither of these companies want to mess with keeping track of all that.

FedEx goes one further and states that a spill of any undeclared liquid will be treated as an unknown hazardous material spill and cleanup will be handled by a qualified hazmat team. The person shipping said material will then be contacted by the FedEx lawyers about collecting the cost of the cleanup.

The safe route is to go with UPS. Just don't declare it as beer. Be as honest as you can without actually saying it. Some people ship "yeast samples for evaluation". Since I have a history with my local UPS folks of shipping art pottery and other collectables, they never raised an eyebrow when I started shipping "collectable beer bottles". The best way is to get a user account with UPS so you can pay and print labels online. This way you can drop the package off at the UPS counter or with the package pickup at a local business that has UPS pick up stuff for them.

Hope this helps a little.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[DannyW]

I signed up for an online UPS account. I can enter my package's weight, dimensions, and where I want it to go. Then I get a shipping label to print on the laser printer and tape to the box.

If we had a regular UPS pickup, he would take it. We don't so I drop it off at the pack-n-ship across the street. They see that label and just take the box. Never a question.

I always hated filling out the form at the counter; the clerk always asked questions. With the prepaid form it just goes.