I spend a lot of time wandering around the Big Box stores looking at the latest and greatest grills. Looking at grills makes me happy.
The grill that has caught my eye recently is the Weber Spirit II S 210.
This is a sweet little two burner grill and the side table folds down if you are a little tight on space.
The Spirit II S 210 has full stainless construction and a porcelain enameled cast iron grate.
There was a time when you bought a Spirit because it was cheap and you couldn’t afford a Genesis. That is no longer the case with the Weber Spirit II grills. They have the same ten year warranty as a Genesis, cost less and are only about 20% smaller.
My beef with this grill is that Weber is selling it with a lie. That lie is the GS4 badge.
Weber made a big deal out of the GS4 High Performance Grilling System when they launched the redesigned Weber Genesis II in 2017.
A key component of the GS4 system on the Genesis are the redesigned tapered rectangular burners which are meant to even out the flame pattern across the entire burner. Before 2017 all Weber as grills had the standard cylindrical burners.
What pisses me off is that the Spirit II grills carry the GS4 badge but come equipped with the old cylindrical burners with the cross over ignition system.
These burners work just fine. They are a tried and true design. But they are NOT the burners that are advertised as being part of the GS4 High Performance grilling system. Here is Weber’s promo video for the GS4 system.
Look, I know that Weber came up with the term “GS4” and that they can use it any way they want to but this looks like a blatant bait and switch to me. They will stick the GS4 badge on the front but wont put the upgraded burners in the grill.
I guess they are claiming that “GS4” can mean different things based upon the grill series. It looks like they have one set of GS4 specs for the Genesis an another for the Spirit. I am guessing that in 2019 they will come out with a different set of specs for a GS4 system in the Summit.
I suspect that a LOT of people are going to buy the new Spirit grills thinking that they will be getting the upgrades that are present on the Genesis. Unfortunately, due to some shady marketing, they will be disappointed.
It makes me a little sad that such a great little grill is tainted by a dishonest badge.
Peace.