'Woke-free' beer venture in Georgia earns F rating with BBB
Seth Weathers operates Ultra Right Beer from his Johns Creek home, using a brewery in Lakeland, FL
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. - Any entrepreneur will tell you coming up with a great idea is actually the easy part. Delivering on your promises is the true challenge.
Just ask a Georgia beer company that caters to a specific set of customers.
Ultra Right Beer sprang to life nine months ago to take advantage of conservative criticism of Bud Light’s trans marketing campaign.
Owner Seth Weathers, 39, decided to market Ultra Right as "100% Woke Free American Beer." He originally contracted with a brewery in Lawrenceville. Now he uses a larger one in Lakeland, Florida.
He also sells calendars, hats and t-shirts on his website promoting his conservative values.
But more than 100 would-be customers have instead headed to a different website, the Better Business Bureau, filing complaints that they paid Weathers for beer that never arrived.
The company currently has an F Rating at the BBB.
Tony Leuci of Tampa, FL says his wife ordered their Limited Edition conservative beer in September with the promise it would be shipped within 45 days. More than 120 days later, he still doesn't have his beer.
"I don’t care what product or ideology you’re doing," Tony Leuci of Tampa, Florida, told the FOX 5 I-Team. "This is horrible customer service."
Leuci’s wife placed an order in September for a limited edition Conservative Dad’s Revenge six-pack with Donald Trump’s mugshot on the label.
Four months later — still no beer. The only response Leuci got from the company came in a generic email offering refunds, sent after the FOX 5 I-Team started asking questions.
"It's so damn frustrating that nobody responds to you, and they're supposed to be a business," Leuci complained. "That's not a business."
Walker Means of Edinboro, Pennsylvania, has waited for his beer since November. The website promised he’d get it in 30 days.
"I placed an order for two reasons," he explained. "One to obviously give a pretty nice gift but also to support the kind of company I thought was kind of spearheading the movement of not shoving things down our throats all the time."
And now?
"Absolutely not," Means said. "They’ve just chosen not to communicate. And that’s a shame."
Weathers explained to the FOX 5 I-Team his four-person company was overwhelmed with orders, and no one bothered to pay attention to the BBB complaints.
"If someone doesn’t want the beer at this time, we’ll offer them a refund," he said. "We’re doing the best we can to put it in the cans and get it out as fast as we can."
Criticism of a socially-conscious company’s shoddy customer service isn’t unique.
Two years ago, the FOX 5 I-Team investigated identical complaints about Support Black Colleges, created to raise awareness of Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs.
That company also scored an F with the BBB. Customers were furious that their hoodies and shirts had yet to arrive, and no one from Support Black Colleges seemed to care.
The owners made public assurances that they would turn things around. Their company still has an F-rating today.
The company says this Limited Edition beer generated approximately $1 million in sales, a portion going to conservative causes like the Georgia GOP and the legal defense fund for one of the so-called fake electors. But frustrated customers say they o
Weathers has made good on his promise to give some of the beer money to conservative causes. Ultra Right Beer donated $50,000 of the Trump mugshot beer sales to the GA GOP. Another $50,000 is promised to David Shafer’s defense fund, one of the so-called fake electors indicted in Fulton County.
Weathers says the company has also donated to the 1776 Project PAC, Let Them Live and Red Renaissance, among others.
"I love our customers," he said. "Even the ones that are maybe mad at me right now for the delay."
Dawn Young of Orange Park, Florida, finally got her beer after complaining directly to Weathers on X. She also got a refund.
"I’m really hoping it’s legitimate and helps the conservative movement," she said.